“After all, we are not in Wonderland”

by Kerry Dougherty

Here’s a quaint idea: If you’re a trans person going through hormone treatment, don’t get involved with drug dealers. Definitely don’t help them in their illegal business.

If you do, you might get caught, convicted and sentenced to jail. And authorities might toss you in a facility housing others that match your biological sex.

Then again, you might get lucky.

Your case may be heard by a three-judge panel of woke federal judges who decide that the American’s With Disabilities Act suddenly covers people with “gender dysphoria.”

Never mind that when the ADA was passed in 1990 it explicitly said that “gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments” were not covered.

I’m talking, in case you missed it, about the case of Kesha Williams, a biological male from Fairfax County who’s lived as a woman for many years. Williams has not had surgery to remove his male organs, but takes female hormones.

Williams was sentenced to six months in jail for helping a drug dealer boyfriend.

At first Williams was housed in the woman’s section of the Fairfax County jail, until authorities realized that she was a he.

Williams was moved to the men’s unit where he was not able to “get a bra or consistent hormone treatment,” according to The Washington Post.

Naturally, Williams sued.

According to The Washington Post, Williams is worried about other trans inmates: “The next girl could really want to hurt herself, could kill herself,” Williams said.

Despite reports of trans male inmates impregnating female inmates with whom they’ve been housed, two Democrat appointees to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals decided to turn American correctional facilities into turmoil last week.

The Post reports:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit has become the first appellate court in the country to find that gender dysphoria is covered by the Americans With Disabilities Act, after a transgender woman sued Fairfax County for housing her with men during her time in jail.

“Being transgender is not a disability,” the court wrote in an opinion issued Tuesday, but “many transgender people experience gender dysphoria,” or distress over the discrepancy between their identity and their assigned sex. “A transgender person’s medical needs are just as deserving of treatment and protection as anyone else’s.”

Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr., a Republican appointee, dissented. Not that The Post bothered to report what he had to say.

According to Law360.com:

Judge Quattlebaum said he accepted that she suffered from gender dysphoria and that the condition “involves discomfort or distress caused by a discrepancy between one’s gender identity and the sex assigned at birth,” but he said he wasn’t buying her claim that it’s covered by the ADA.

“Accepting those allegations as true does not require me to turn a blind eye to the plain language of the authorities on which Williams relies,” the judge said. “Nor does it permit Williams, like Humpty Dumpty, to ‘use a word’ and declare ‘it means just what I choose it to mean.’”

“After all, we are not in Wonderland,” Judge Quattlebaum said.

Oh, yes, we are in Wonderland, Judge. How do we escape?

Apparently no one cares about the rights of biological women to be housed in all-female facilities. Somehow, the rights of trans inmates trump theirs. It’s the same with women’s sports. The rights of mediocre male athletes to switch genders and dominate biological women is the vanguard of the new civil rights battles.

We’ve lost our way in America.

Here’s something ironic: On July 22, 1994, the day Judge Diana Gribbon Motz – the author of this radical decision — was elevated to the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals — The Baltimore Sun wrote a glowing profile about the Clinton appointee who was about to become the first woman to serve on that court.

This is how the story concluded:

To her new job, she hopes to bring “some common sense,” she says.

That was 28 years ago. This judge obviously lost her common sense along the way.

This column has been republished with permission from Kerry: Unemployed & Unedited.


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Comments

19 responses to ““After all, we are not in Wonderland””

  1. vicnicholls Avatar
    vicnicholls

    No way. When handicapped people can’t get accommodations but this is allowed, we’re totally gone from rule of law to rule by tyranny.

  2. Okay. So a federal court has classified gender dysphoria as a disability. This trans-phobic decision could, and probably should, result in the LGBTQ+ community organizing protests at federal court buildings all over the country.

    All I ask is that the protests be kept [mostly] peaceful…

    1. Nancy Naive Avatar
      Nancy Naive

      https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=20C1cpnYjMo
      American version, “cherry cola”

      Maybe Lola can break some spines…

      1. I’m not even sure what legal basis the judges had for their decision. Following is a list included in the ADA itself which describes things which are specifically NOT included in the act.

        Things not covered by ADA:

        Homosexuality and bisexuality.
        Compulsive gambling.
        Kleptomania.
        Pyromania.
        Transvestism.
        Transexualism.
        Exhibitionism.
        Pedophilia.
        Voyeurism.
        Gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments.
        Sexual behavior disorders.
        Physical characteristics (eye color, hair color, left-handedness, etc.).
        Common personality traits.
        Psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs.

      2. I’m not even sure what legal basis the judges had for their decision. Following is a list included in the ADA itself which describes things which are specifically NOT covered by the act.

        Things not covered by ADA:

        Homosexuality and bisexuality.
        Compulsive gambling.
        Kleptomania.
        Pyromania.
        Transvestism.
        Transexualism.
        Exhibitionism.
        Pedophilia.
        Voyeurism.
        Gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments.
        Sexual behavior disorders.
        Physical characteristics (eye color, hair color, left-handedness, etc.).
        Common personality traits.
        Psychoactive substance use disorders resulting from current illegal use of drugs.

        1. Nancy Naive Avatar
          Nancy Naive

          This one is a mystery to me.

          1. Same here. Maybe the judges thought they were helping people with gender dysphoria, but I don’t see how any reasonable person with gender dysphoria could possibly interpret the decision as anything other than an insult.

            After all, the stated purpose of the ADA is to protect individuals who suffer from certain physical and mental disorders.

            Since gender dysphoria is not a physical disability, that leaves only….

          2. Same here. Maybe the judges thought they were helping people with gender dysphoria, but I don’t see how any reasonable person with gender dysphoria could possibly interpret the decision as anything other than an insult.

            After all, the stated purpose of the ADA is to protect individuals who suffer from certain physical and mental disorders.

            Since gender dysphoria is not a physical disability, that leaves only….

          3. Same here. Maybe the judges thought they were helping people with gender dysphoria, but I don’t see how any reasonable person with gender dysphoria could possibly interpret the decision as anything other than an insult.

            After all, the stated purpose of the ADA is to protect individuals who suffer from certain physical and mental disorders.

            Since gender dysphoria is not a physical disability, that leaves only….

          4. Same here. Maybe the judges thought they were helping people with gender dysphoria, but I don’t see how any reasonable person with gender dysphoria could possibly interpret the decision as anything other than an insult.

            After all, the stated purpose of the ADA is to protect individuals who suffer from certain physical and mental disorders.

            Gender dysphoria is not a physical disability, so that leaves only….

          5. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Oooh, oooh, I know! I know! It’s “restrooms” in public places. It’s an access thing!

          6. Lefty665 Avatar

            deleted

          7. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Deleted? What deleted? Or, did you mean “delighted”?

          8. Lefty665 Avatar

            Nah, I reconsidered a rude gender joke involving access to public facilities.

          9. Nancy Naive Avatar
            Nancy Naive

            Not in the nightclubs.

          10. Lefty665 Avatar

            Silly you, thinking that the D in ADA being “Disability” actually has any meaning or that DSM 5 was doing more than beating its gums.

            But, your logic is impeccable. To be covered under the act is to have a disablity.

            That is quite the conundrum. Those covered under the act require reasonable accommodations, but that also requires embracing that one has a disability. There may be some resistance. Not to mention that acknowledgement of a disability is the prerequisite for rehabilitation. But that’s a whole different can of worms.

            It also raises the question that with gender dysphoria, a mismatch between mental gender and physical plumbing, how should the “disability” be reasonably accommodated?

            Current choice seems to be rearranging the plumbing. But, what of the alternative, psychoactive meds and therapy to abate the mental disconnect and embrace the plumbing to resolve the dysphoria?

            It would be a modern variation on the line from the old tune “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with”.

        2. Lefty665 Avatar

          ADA, enacted in 1990, explicitly excludes gender identity disorders as covered disabilities.

          DSM 5, published in 2013, removes Gender Identity Disorder and renames it Gender Dysphoria in part to remove the stigma of being identified as a disorder.

          Court decision, in 2022, defines gender dysphoria as a covered disability despite the clear language of ADA and DSM5 to the contrary.

          The court while accommodating the plaintiff has done the gender dysphoric community no favors by moving it into the category of disabled people. You are right, that should make folks unhappy.

        3. James C. Sherlock Avatar
          James C. Sherlock

          The Fourth Circuit is the new Ninth Circuit.

          This case will be overturned by the Supremes.

          The decision may be unanimous given the clear language of the statute upon which the 4th Circuit relied.

          It will have to get in line behind their pipeline decisions.

          1. I agree.

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