"After class, Doe approached Meriwether and 'demanded' that Meriwether 'refer to [Doe] as a woman' and use 'feminine titles and pronouns.'"

"This was the first time that Meriwether learned that Doe identified as a woman. So Meriwether paused before responding because his sincerely held religious beliefs prevented him from communicating messages about gender identity that he believes are false. He explained that he wasn’t sure if he could comply with Doe’s demands. Doe became hostile—circling around Meriwether at first, and then approaching him in a threatening manner: 'I guess this means I can call you a cu--.' Doe promised that Meriwether would be fired if he did not give in to Doe’s demands."

From Meriwether v. Hartop (6th Circuit, March 26, 2021), via "Professor who refused school order on transgender student’s pronouns wins in court" (NY Post). 

It was a motion to dismiss, so the facts stated above are the plaintiff's allegations, presumed true and with the inferences all going toward the plaintiff. The professor will be able to go forward with claims based on freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

"Opponents of trans girls’ participation in sports frame their fight in terms of the rights and opportunities of cis girls..."

"... they claim that trans girls, with their unfair advantage, will snag the medals and the college scholarships that rightfully belong to athletes who were assigned female at birth. But, as I listened to the Judiciary Committee hearing, it struck me that the opposition set up in the arguments was between cis-girl athletes on the one hand and a vast liberal conspiracy on the other. (The term 'gender ideology,' a favorite bugaboo of the global far-right movement, made an appearance, too—gender ideology is also apparently out to destroy girls’ sports.) Trans girls were not a part of this imaginary equation, and this was perhaps the most telling part of the hearing. Nor are trans boys ever mentioned in this conversation, perhaps because forcing trans boys to compete against girls, as has happened in Texas, where a trans-boy wrestler who had begun testosterone therapy handily beat female competitors, would expose the inconsistency of the argument from defenders of sex purity in sports. The goal of this campaign is not to protect cis-girl athletes as much as it is to make trans athletes disappear. This is a movement to exclude trans girls from community and opportunity. It is a movement driven by panic over the safety of women and children that reproduces earlier panics, like those over the presence of lesbians on women’s sports teams. And, just like earlier panics, this one is based on what passes for common sense but is in fact ignorance and hate."

From "The Movement to Exclude Trans Girls from Sports/The opposition is cast as one between cis-girl athletes on the one hand and a vast liberal conspiracy on the other" by Masha Gessen (The New Yorker).

1. The rhetorical move here is to characterize one's antagonists as bundles of emotion — hate and panic. Then, the idea is that we don't need to take their stated arguments seriously, because we know what they are really about and we certainly don't want to associate with such awful people. 

2. We're expected not to care about the field of women's sports, which has been specially cultivated over the years in the interest of equality in education. We're expected to feel bad about ourselves if we think that the medals and scholarships of women's sports "rightfully belong" to those who were "assigned female at birth."

3. "It is a movement driven by panic over the safety of women and children that reproduces earlier panics, like...." Like the Me Too movement? The safety of women and children is overwhelmingly important... except when they tell you that it is not.

4. I looked up the committee hearing because I wanted to see how the term "gender ideology" was used. Gessen tells us it's "a favorite bugaboo of the global far-right movement." There's this, from Abigail Shrier (author of "Irreversible Damage"): 

I have probably interviewed more transgender Americans than any person in this room. And I can honestly say that — excepting political activists — most do not want to obliterate women’s rights and safe spaces. Most would never think of stealing women’s scholarships by forcing young women into demoralizing contests with male bodies. But gender ideology, which is at the heart of this bill, is misogyny in progressive clothing. Gender ideology tells women and girls that they are not entitled to their fear or their sense of unfairness, as their protective spaces are eliminated. They must never object that sports is and has always been, a matter of biology, not identity. They mustn’t assert that we keep women’s protective spaces for biological women to ensure their physical safety, regardless of how they identify, because it isn’t our identities that are at risk, it’s our bodily integrity. Being a woman is a lifetime commitment. It entails profound blessings, but also physical vulnerabilities. For generations, women like the late Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, fought to create sex- based protections to make life safe and fair for women. If you vote to take away those rights, don’t pretend you’ve achieved a civil rights victory. In the name of inclusivity, you’ll have made life far less safe, far less fair, and far less inclusive for America’s women and girls.

"Watching the recent surge of women’s sports enthusiasts clamoring to save female athletes from the transgender rights movement, it’s hard not to feel a little wistful."

"So this is what it’s like to matter.... But all this new passion has made me wonder, what if all these people claiming to be fighting for the future of women’s sports would really fight for the future of women’s sports? What if they suddenly said, 'We demand women’s sports get equal resources, equal media coverage, and equal pay'?... Consider last week: As the N.C.A.A. basketball tournaments began, female players demanded to know why the weight room in the men’s bubble had state of the art lifting equipment, whereas they got a stingy rack of dumbbells...."

Let me put it on Twitter too cause this needs the attention pic.twitter.com/t0DWKL2YHR

— Sedona Prince (@sedonaprince_) March 19, 2021

From "So You Want to ‘Save Women’s Sports’?/More than 20 states are considering bills to ban transgender kids from girls’ sports. If only people really cared about female athletes" (NYT).

"The Christian Baker Who Said ‘No’/Jack Phillips is again in court for refusing to bake a cake with a message he objects to."

Headline at the Wall Street Journal. 

Philips was in the news years ago after he refused to make a same-sex wedding cake. He's dealt with that problem by not making custom wedding cakes anymore (and, we're told, losing 40% of his business). 

Now, he's accusing of discrimination against transgenders:

In her original complaint to the [Colorado Civil Rights Commission, Autumn Scardina] wrote that she’d told the bakery the design was “intended for the celebration of my transition from male to female.”

Blue icing on a pink cake.

After Masterpiece turned down this cake, Ms. Scardina called to request another. This one would feature Satan smoking a joint. Mr. Phillips declined....

“Jack didn’t single Scardina out for being transgender,” [said Kristen Waggoner, general counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom]. “He wouldn’t bake cakes with those messages for anyone.” This is a baker who won’t even make Halloween cakes, she adds, and serves everyone regardless of gender identity or sexual orientation....

"Leaders of the British group LGB Alliance warn that lesbians are 'going to become extinct’ as individuals increasingly identify as trans..."

"... a fear echoed both by trans-exclusionary groups and by lesbian feminists who in other ways advocate for trans rights. Feminist writer Aimee Anderson frets about 'the extinction of an entire people,' and Cherríe Moraga worries that butch lesbians, self-actualizing as transmasculine, might 'become a dying breed.' Tomboys, too, have become a point of contention, seen by some as a 'rarer and rarer species' that is 'going extinct' as more tomboyish children identify as trans and/or nonbinary.... As a lesbian researcher of tomboyism trained in queer theory, I find claims like these at once absurd and frightening. Extinction anxieties have long fueled nationalist, fascist and white-supremacist movements and often beget eugenicist agendas. Indeed, tomboyism as we know it arose in concert with eugenics.... Child-rearing manuals began advocating for exercise and comfortable clothing, instead of the restrictive and harmful corsets then common, as means of making White girls fit to produce healthy White offspring.... Lesbians are not a species, and we feed existing racist, ableist and homophobic agendas when we invoke extinction...." 

From "The latest form of transphobia: Saying lesbians are going extinct" by Lynne Stahl (WaPO).

"The Equality Act... explicitly overrides the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which prohibits the federal government from 'substantially burdening' individuals’ exercise of religion..."

"... unless it is for a 'compelling government interest.' While enacted in 1993 with overwhelming bipartisan support, the RFRA in recent years has been most loudly championed by social conservatives. LGBTQ and civil liberties advocates say the RFRA has been used to allow discrimination. The Equality Act matches Americans’ fast-moving rejection of discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation. More than 6 in 10 Americans say business owners should not be allowed to refuse services to LGBTQ people on the basis of religion."

WaPo reports in "Equality Act is creating a historic face-off between religious exemptions and LGBTQ rights." 

WaPo wants to assure you that RFRA something only social conservatives cherish, but that is history rewritten. RFRA was a reaction to the 1990 case Employment Division v. Smith, which was written by Antonin Scalia, who articulated the strong, clear position that the Constitution does not require religion-based exemptions to laws that are written to be neutral and generally applicable. The dissenting opinions in that case were by the liberal Justices Brennan, Marshall, and Blackmun.

As I wrote on this blog a few years ago:

The RFRA bill was sponsored in the House by Congressman Chuck Schumer and in the Senate by Teddy Kennedy. (Each had a GOP co-sponsor). The Democrats controlled Congress, but the Republicans all voted for it too (with the sole exception of Jesse Helms).

From the NYT article in 1993 when President Bill Clinton signed RFRA into law:

President Clinton hailed the new law at the signing ceremony, saying that it held government "to a very high level of proof before it interferes with someone's free exercise of religion."...

President Clinton voiced wonder today at this alliance of forces that are often at odds across religious or ideological lines. "The power of God is such that even in the legislative process miracles can happen," he said.

It's absurd that it's so easy to forget what progressives valued in RFRA and why the liberal Justices dissented in Smith. It was about the rights of minorities. But there are minorities and there are minorities. You can't favor them all. RFRA chose religious minorities. The Equality Act favors gender identity and sexual orientation minorities. 

Scalia's Smith allowed Congress to shift back and forth like that. It merely said that legislatures can get away with laws that don't discriminate against religion, that it doesn't have to favor religion. RFRA is just a statute — even if Clinton pronounced it the work of God Himself — and it only takes a statute to change it. The requirement of religious exemptions could have been found in the Constitution's Free Exercise Clause, but the conservative Court did not see it.