As I understand it, WPATH and its standards of care present an obstacle to successfully litigating claims against professionals for harmful interventions that are meant to affirm patients' trans identities.
That's because the physician or mental health professional will raise the legal defense that he or she merely followed the definitive…
As I understand it, WPATH and its standards of care present an obstacle to successfully litigating claims against professionals for harmful interventions that are meant to affirm patients' trans identities.
That's because the physician or mental health professional will raise the legal defense that he or she merely followed the definitive standards of care in their field, by which they would mean WPATH's SOC 8 and its predecessors.
I imagine that trans activists and their allies go to great lengths to make sure WPATH's standards of care remain unassailable. Why, even my state legislative representative's staffer referred to these flawed standards of care as the "gold standard."
Often the outcome of a lawsuit depends on which side's expert wins the courtroom battle of experts. Does Genspect intend that at some point the Gender Framework will have sufficient credibility in the right places that it can be used in court to show that the gender-affirming professional who relied on WPATH's standards failed to exercise reasonable care? What needs to be done to reach that point?
In a separate vein, it grinds my gears whenever I see the output of scholars such as Judith Butler dignified by being referred to as "theory," to wit, "queer theory" and "gender theory." Whatever the intent behind that practice was, it has the effect of conferring an unwarranted status of scientific legitimacy to ideologies that have never been validated according to the scientific method. I hope that Section 1 of the Gender Framework will disabuse the world of the notion that queer theory accurately describes or predicts any aspects of human attitudes or behavior.
"As I understand it, WPATH and its standards of care present an obstacle to successfully litigating claims against professionals for harmful interventions that are meant to affirm patients' trans identities."
This is accurate, but woke state governments go much farther. They have passed and are passing laws that specifically "protect providers of gender affirming care" from malpractice suits. My state has included this protection in their laws requiring that gender affirmative care be the legal standard of care for anybody claiming to have one of the identities currently approved for surgery. These identities include "non-binary," so that people who want both sets of equipment can order and get them at our local university hospital. All insurance companies are required by state law to pay for these services, and if a prospective consumer needs additional funding, the taxpayers are required to pay for them via Medicaid.
That progressive states are granting gender-affirming health care professionals legislative protection from malpractice liability is depressing and outrageous. I'm not well enough versed in this field of law to know whether legal claims for failure to obtain the patient's informed consent would be covered by the grant of immunity.
In any case, since many gender doctors today are more faithful to gender identity ideology than to their obligations to do no harm, giving those individuals immunity from malpractice claims is a patent injustice. It leaves people who suffered damages at the hands of gender doctors without recourse. I hope there are creative litigators out there who can come up with innovative legal theories to circumvent such barriers.
If not, it means that efforts to roll back the excesses of trans activism must focus on states where progressives don't control the executive and legislative branches and where malpractice suits are still viable. That's not without its drawbacks. One of them is having to collaborate with MAGA Republicans and/or far-right lawyers such as the stable at Stephen Miller's America First Legal Foundation. The other is that the mainstream media would present any gains inaccurately as an "assault on LGBTQ rights" the way they always do while gender identity ideologists would scream trans genocide.
Now, I tend to respect the mainstream media and have no sympathy for those who babble about "fake news," but when it comes to trans issues few journalists are willing to do objective reporting, perhaps because of pressure from above.
I certainly agree with everything you are saying! Some of the detransitioners who have been featured on this site are suing in progressive states, so we will perhaps see how the gender ideologues defend their destructive interventions. It is also possible that state laws that are intended to cancel citizens' right to sue will be judged as illegal by courts. A third source of hope is that evidence of dissent and debate regarding standards of care for sexual identity issues discredits the gender ideologues claim that all clinicians agree with them.
As I understand it, WPATH and its standards of care present an obstacle to successfully litigating claims against professionals for harmful interventions that are meant to affirm patients' trans identities.
That's because the physician or mental health professional will raise the legal defense that he or she merely followed the definitive standards of care in their field, by which they would mean WPATH's SOC 8 and its predecessors.
I imagine that trans activists and their allies go to great lengths to make sure WPATH's standards of care remain unassailable. Why, even my state legislative representative's staffer referred to these flawed standards of care as the "gold standard."
Often the outcome of a lawsuit depends on which side's expert wins the courtroom battle of experts. Does Genspect intend that at some point the Gender Framework will have sufficient credibility in the right places that it can be used in court to show that the gender-affirming professional who relied on WPATH's standards failed to exercise reasonable care? What needs to be done to reach that point?
In a separate vein, it grinds my gears whenever I see the output of scholars such as Judith Butler dignified by being referred to as "theory," to wit, "queer theory" and "gender theory." Whatever the intent behind that practice was, it has the effect of conferring an unwarranted status of scientific legitimacy to ideologies that have never been validated according to the scientific method. I hope that Section 1 of the Gender Framework will disabuse the world of the notion that queer theory accurately describes or predicts any aspects of human attitudes or behavior.
"As I understand it, WPATH and its standards of care present an obstacle to successfully litigating claims against professionals for harmful interventions that are meant to affirm patients' trans identities."
This is accurate, but woke state governments go much farther. They have passed and are passing laws that specifically "protect providers of gender affirming care" from malpractice suits. My state has included this protection in their laws requiring that gender affirmative care be the legal standard of care for anybody claiming to have one of the identities currently approved for surgery. These identities include "non-binary," so that people who want both sets of equipment can order and get them at our local university hospital. All insurance companies are required by state law to pay for these services, and if a prospective consumer needs additional funding, the taxpayers are required to pay for them via Medicaid.
That progressive states are granting gender-affirming health care professionals legislative protection from malpractice liability is depressing and outrageous. I'm not well enough versed in this field of law to know whether legal claims for failure to obtain the patient's informed consent would be covered by the grant of immunity.
In any case, since many gender doctors today are more faithful to gender identity ideology than to their obligations to do no harm, giving those individuals immunity from malpractice claims is a patent injustice. It leaves people who suffered damages at the hands of gender doctors without recourse. I hope there are creative litigators out there who can come up with innovative legal theories to circumvent such barriers.
If not, it means that efforts to roll back the excesses of trans activism must focus on states where progressives don't control the executive and legislative branches and where malpractice suits are still viable. That's not without its drawbacks. One of them is having to collaborate with MAGA Republicans and/or far-right lawyers such as the stable at Stephen Miller's America First Legal Foundation. The other is that the mainstream media would present any gains inaccurately as an "assault on LGBTQ rights" the way they always do while gender identity ideologists would scream trans genocide.
Now, I tend to respect the mainstream media and have no sympathy for those who babble about "fake news," but when it comes to trans issues few journalists are willing to do objective reporting, perhaps because of pressure from above.
I certainly agree with everything you are saying! Some of the detransitioners who have been featured on this site are suing in progressive states, so we will perhaps see how the gender ideologues defend their destructive interventions. It is also possible that state laws that are intended to cancel citizens' right to sue will be judged as illegal by courts. A third source of hope is that evidence of dissent and debate regarding standards of care for sexual identity issues discredits the gender ideologues claim that all clinicians agree with them.