As the number of children identifying as transgender has increased enormously, the gender debate has taken center stage in the American culture war. How did we get here?
For years, the answer has evaded many—but not for lack of trying. In the quest to understand the transgender boom, many wide-ranging theories have surfaced, focusing on social progress, coping mechanisms in adolescent development, social media, and even the massive profits for healthcare providers.
But these theories often overlook one factor: the law.
Transgender Conveyor Belt
Recently, my colleague Luke Goodrich at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty outlined what he calls the “Transgender Conveyor Belt”—a complex network of state and federal laws that pressures children toward gender transition and contributes to the explosive rise in children identifying as transgender.
It works like this:
Step 1: As early as pre-K, schools begin teaching children to question their gender identity.
Step 2: For those children who begin to question their identity, teachers must not only affirm the child’s transition—with new pronouns, clothes, and bathrooms—but also hide it from parents.
Step 3: If parents learn about their child’s new gender identity, the law prohibits them from seeking professional counseling that would help the child become comfortable with his or her biological sex.
Step 4: At this point, for parents who continue to resist, the state threatens to take custody away.
Step 5: Now that the child is well on the way to transitioning, the government guarantees access to gender-transition drugs and surgery.
Step 6: To ensure cost is no roadblock, insurance companies must cover gender-transition procedures.
At each step, the law operates to move children down the path of gender transition. The conveyor belt is, in other words, a one-way track—and it won’t change unless the conveyor belt is challenged head-on.
Fortunately, the conveyor belt is being challenged at every step.
Conveyor Belt in the Classroom
Step 1. The transgender conveyor belt begins where children are most impressionable—in the classroom. As conveyor belt supporters explain, preschool is “the ideal time” to begin introducing subjects like “gender diversity, gender nonconformity, and gender-based oppression.”
And that’s exactly what schools have begun to do. For example, just outside our nation’s capital, the county of Montgomery in Maryland required pre-K and elementary-aged children to read controversial books that promoted transgender ideology and encouraged gender transitioning—all without parental notice or opt-out. The school board encouraged teachers to “disrupt students’ either/or thinking” about gender. To that end, one book tasked 3- and 4-year-old children to search for images from a word list that includes “intersex flag,” “[drag] queen,” “underwear,” and the name of a celebrated LGBT+ activist and sex worker.
At first, the school board assured parents they’d be able to opt their children out of this instruction. But it later inexplicably withdrew that right—making these books the only part of the school’s curriculum that parents cannot opt children out of for religious reasons.
With the Becket Fund’s help, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian families sued Montgomery County to restore their parental religious liberty rights to opt their children out. Unfortunately, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled for Montgomery County. As a result, the religious parents will ask the Supreme Court to protect their parental religious liberty rights later this summer.
Step 2. It doesn’t end there. Some school districts have pushed further, requiring teachers not only to affirm a child’s new gender identity—with new pronouns, clothes, and bathrooms—but also to hide the transition from parents.
That’s what California did to Jessica Konen. According to the lawsuit, several teachers and administrators secretly (without telling Jessica) worked to convince Jessica’s daughter she was transgender. After succeeding, they created a personal gender support plan and supplied her with new pronouns and clothes. This plan even instructed her to hide the transition from her mother because, according to the school, Jessica couldn’t be trusted.
As a result, Jessica didn’t learn about her daughter’s transition until the next year—when her daughter eventually felt comfortable sharing her new identity. Yet even after being confronted, the school confirmed it would continue to refer to and treat Jessica’s daughter as a boy. So Jessica sued the school district for violating her parental rights, after which the district paid her $100,000 to settle the case.
On the flip side, however, states like California and New Jersey are suing local school districts for telling parents like Jessica that their child is transitioning.
Conveyor Belt in the Home
Step 3. After parents learn about their child’s transition, the conveyor belt leaves them powerless to do much. That’s because 22 states and more than 100 local governments have adopted counseling censorship laws, which prohibit parents from getting counseling services designed to help their children become comfortable with their biological sex.
Essentially, these laws make it illegal for counselors to talk to children about behavior that aligns with their biological sex, which can even prohibit discussion of the underlying issues causing the child’s discomfort. Because of these laws, counselors must affirm a child’s transition.
Parents and counselors have challenged these laws with mixed results. For example, in Otto v. City of Boca Raton, the Eleventh Circuit ruled that the First Amendment “does not allow communities to determine how their neighbors may be counseled about matters of sexual orientation or gender.”
But the Ninth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion in Tingley v. Ferguson. There, the court ruled that counseling censorship laws address “professional speech,” which means the government can implement them to “protect the physical and psychological well-being of its minors.”
Although the Supreme Court ultimately declined to review the Tingley decision, several justices signaled interest in taking a case like this in the future.
Step 4. Any parents who continue to resist their child’s transition risk losing custody altogether.
That’s what happened to Catholic parents Mary and Jeremy Cox in Indiana. After someone reported that the couple wouldn’t refer to their son by a girl’s name and pronouns, the state swooped in and took the son into foster care. What was it that made the Cox home so unsafe? They dared to seek help for their son’s existing mental health struggles rather than treat him as a girl.
Even though Indiana ultimately concluded there wasn’t any abuse or neglect, it still permanently removed Mary and Jeremy’s son from their home. The state believed the boy “should be in a home where she is [ac]cepted for who she is,” and the Indiana courts agreed. The Becket Fund then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene, but the Court declined to help.
This is unlikely to be an isolated incident. Illinois is currently considering legislation that would make it child abuse for a parent not to support a medical transition. And Oregon, Massachusetts, Washington, and New Jersey have all rejected loving foster parents because they wouldn’t support hypothetical future gender transitions.
Conveyor Belt in the Doctor’s Office
Steps 5 and 6. Finally, now that both children and parents have been pushed toward a gender transition, the conveyor belt reaches its endgame—medical transition.
Recently, Biden finalized a new rule that requires doctors and hospitals to guarantee access to gender-transition drugs and surgery, regardless of their religious beliefs. The rule also requires insurance companies to cover these experimental procedures.
Although this is frightening, the good news is that Biden’s transgender mandate isn’t likely to succeed. It’s the second attempt to impose such a mandate—the Becket Fund defeated Obama’s earlier attempt in 2016. Courts have held that transgender mandates trample the rights of religious healthcare providers because they impose a substantial burden on the exercise of religion and can’t satisfy the strictest legal test.
Science Rejects the Conveyor Belt
While much is still to be legally decided, scientific evidence is mounting that the conveyor belt is harmful.
Last month, in “the largest review ever undertaken in the field of transgender health care,” a new report condemned the transgender practices that “remain widespread in . . . America” and debunked many widely held beliefs about transgender care. For example, the report busted the myth that puberty blockers merely “pause” sexual development and buy more “time to think.” As the report explained, puberty blockers can permanently inhibit a child’s development by preventing critical events in puberty.
In reality, the report only confirmed what many already knew: transgender procedures inflict severe (and often irreversible) harm. The child’s body, after being both “permanently and profoundly altered,” becomes “sterile”—to say nothing of the emotional trauma that can eventually lead to suicide. That’s why the United Kingdom, Sweden, and France—all former gender-affirming pioneers—are pressing the brakes on medical transitions for children.
Despite all these harms, some still argue that children “have a right to the hazards of their own free will.” But aside from being wrong, that’s cold comfort to the kids rushed down the conveyor belt only to later regret the hasty transition foisted upon them.
Hope
Although the fight is ongoing, there’s cause for hope.
The transgender conveyor belt is a fragile network that contradicts basic principles of religious freedom, free speech, parental rights, and medical science. Important victories have already been won, and through the courageous individuals who continue to stand up, there’ll no doubt be many more.
The Gospel Coalition