I am often amazed at how every single PITT contribution brings a unique thought to the table. All of us are suffering from this bizarre and evil phenomenon that has swept through the Western world, but each parent's voice can tell us something new.
Thank you for sharing. Helped delineate or separate the need for forgiveness and at the same time not brushing over the pain your child has afflicted/has been affected. Your true love shown here is powerful and convicting for me. Praying for you and all of you. Remembering that God forgave/gives us.
Oh, My God! 🙏🏻 I needed to read this. It is as if you’ve written the words I’ve struggled to string together, pen in hand before a blank page waiting to be inked. I stare at it with vacant eyes and broken heart, knowing I need to scribe something that is hanging, but the words don’t come. You’ve captured the essence precisely. I’ve been searching for my lesson in this nightmare or something other than the prodigal son to glean hope. So thank you from a grieving, broken hearted mom still trying to make sense to move forward.
Thank you for this writing and I wish you the best of luck in this journey. I can forgive my daughter but will never forget! I have progressed from the red hot anger and mourning for my daughter in the beginning to a place of acceptance. We are on the 'low' contact list but we get no responses to our messages. Messages that she has sent us in the past have been so hostile & accusatory I am relieved to be free of them. It is also a relief that she lives in another country so I don't have to see the medicinal &, if any, surgical changes to her. As far as forgiving the trans cult industry, it is unlikely I can ever do that! God bless all the families touched by this evil cult.
"On March 10, 2026, the Fourth Circuit issued its decision in Anderson v. Crouch, reversing a lower court ruling that had required West Virginia’s Medicaid program to cover gender surgeries. The ruling is being processed in real time by both sides of this debate. We want to make sure our readers understand what the court actually held — and why, from LGBCC’s perspective, the legal reasoning matters well beyond this single case.
The background
West Virginia’s Medicaid plan covers a wide range of medical services but excludes “sex change” or “transsexual” surgeries. A class of plaintiffs diagnosed with gender dysphoria sued, arguing the exclusion violated the Equal Protection Clause, the Affordable Care Act, and the Medicaid Act. The district court agreed. So did the Fourth Circuit — initially. Then the Supreme Court vacated that decision and remanded in light of Last year’s Skrmetti decision.
On remand, the Fourth Circuit reversed. Unanimously.
What the court held
The panel’s analysis turns on two key questions that our organization gives a lot of thought to. The first is deceptively simple: does excluding coverage of, or banning, gender medical interventions classify people based on who they are, or based on what they’re being treated for?
The court’s answer is the latter. West Virginia doesn’t deny coverage to transgender people as a class. It declines to cover a specific diagnosis — gender dysphoria — for surgical treatment. Anyone, regardless of transgender status, can receive a vaginoplasty covered by West Virginia Medicaid if they have a qualifying diagnosis like congenital absence of a vagina (which is a rarebut actualcondition called vaginal agenesis). No one, regardless of sex or transgender status, can get that same procedure covered if the diagnosis is gender dysphoria. The exclusion is diagnosis-based, not identity-based.
This is the Skrmetti framework applied to adults and to the Medicaid context.
The evidence problem
The second question that the Fourth Circuit addressed is whether banning gender medical interventions, or excluding from coverage in the case of West Virginia, is a rational policy for states to adopt. (While Skrmetti dealt with a ban on procedures as opposed to West Virginia’s exclusion from Medicaid, the court deals with this succinctly: if a state can rationally prohibit these treatments — as the Supreme Court held Tennessee could for minors — then a state can certainly rationally decline to fund them.)
Here, as the Supreme Court did in Skrmetti, the Fourth Circuit engaged directly with the evidence — or rather, the lack of it, but this time looking at adults as well as minors. The opinion cites complication rates that the gender medicine industry has spent years downplaying. Phalloplasty carries a complication rate documented as high as 76.5%. More than half of male-to-female vaginoplasty recipients experienced complications within thirty days. Nearly forty percent required revision surgeries. The court also cites a study finding no mental health advantage from surgery compared to those who did not undergo it.
In finding that the state of West Virginia acted rationally, the panel’s conclusion is straightforward: West Virginia has legitimate, rational grounds — cost, contested efficacy, documented complication rates — to decline coverage. Disagreement among experts doesn’t save the mandate. It defeats it. When the science is genuinely contested, courts will defer to legislative judgment.
This opinion acknowledges the crux of what LGBCC has argued from the beginning. The evidentiary foundation for gender surgeries — at any age — does not meet the bar we require for other medical interventions covered by public funds. The ideology moved faster than the data, and institutions that uncritically adopted the ideology are now watching the legal architecture built around it come apart.
What this ruling does not do
We want to be precise. Anderson v. Crouch does not prohibit gender surgeries. It holds that West Virginia is not required to pay for them through Medicaid. The distinction matters legally, though LGBCC’s position goes further: we oppose the normalization and promotion of adult transition on the same evidentiary grounds the court articulates here. The evidence of benefit is weak. The evidence of harm is mounting. Public funding should follow evidence, not ideology — and so should medical practice.
Why this is part of a larger pattern
Skrmetti. Anderson v. Crouch. The Cass Review. The HHS Report. The systematic withdrawal of pediatric gender medicine protocols across the UK, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. These are not isolated events. They are the predictable result of what happens when an experimental medical movement overreaches, captures institutions, and then encounters sustained, evidence-based scrutiny.
The courts are catching up. The question now is whether American medical institutions will."
"The Fourth Circuit just handed down a ruling that gender medicine advocates will hate, we know so because Erin in the Morn said so...
Here's a clear-eyed look at what it says, what it doesn't, and why the evidence problem isn't going away."
I had thought that you wrote some of this until I clicked on the article you put in the attachment! I should have been watching the double quotations more closely. Ha! I love hearing this new. Thanks so very much for sharing it. What I am seeing here where I live really upsets me. There is a new NoVa Prism Center in McLean, (Northern) Virginia, that has a closet full of breast binders for youth to use (and borrow), children and adolescent trans story books, a community kitchen, arts and crafts, and over 1000+ LGBTQ+ publications, and offers help with connecting to an affirmation therapist, and more (see https://novaprismcenter.gay/). Parents have no clue that their children are going to this center that is within walking distance to places that parents allow their children to go (a teen center, the community center, McDonalds, etc). And, the public schools (Fairfax County Public Schools or FCPS) pushes one of the initial contacts a child will have with the trans movement by celebrating "Trans Day of Visibility." For example, a friend forwarded a flyer to me that says, "FCPS Board - Trans Day of Visibility Proclamation - March 26 - 7 pm - Luther Jackson MS - Please join us for the proclamation and group photo! It shows excited, striving, and colorful people (as online drawings) holding rainbow banners and rainbow flags that including the saying, "Allies Assemble" (with a rainbow heart and smily face next to is on the flag). I would like to find a FCPS parent group to talk to about this so that I can ask them to get them to know and be in touch with Genspect. It is so disheartening to see the trans pipeline being pushed on vulnerable youth and their families in this state. If you have any ideas, please let me know.
What Happens When Schools Secretly Socially Transition a Child?
I am sorry to have been quiet but I have been busy writing legal briefs in support of various cases on appeal across the nation on the subject of secret school transitions. Let me share with you some personal accounts the underscore the devastating results when schools deceive parents about their child’s gender confusion. These …"
Erin Friday is a former Democrat and an attorney. One day living in California, she discovered that her daughter’s school was supporting a secret social transition. After clawing her child back from the groomers, Friday was determined to fight for nationwide reform with an army of angry parents behind her. Now she says she wants to take down every school district that inflicts a secret transition on a family."
There's been a lot going on in Loudoun County, VA - schools with a couple of girls getting assaulted by a boy in a skirt in the girls room, and later with boys saying they were uncomfortable with a trans identified girl in the boys locker room. Maybe they said she was a girl and got in trouble?
Anyway, this is a bunch of search results I haven't looked through completely but there would be lawyers practicing in VA who are experienced with this mess by now, I'd think:
1) Girls assaulted by boy in skirt:
"One of the two known sexual-abuse victims in Virginia’s Loudoun County school district is seeking $30 million in damages more than two years after she was assaulted in the girls’ bathroom by a “skirt-wearing” male student."
I don't expect that you would be successful asking them to give equal time to Detrans Awareness Day on March 12th?
I see that "NoVA Prism Center, Inc is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, EIN 92-2161431" I don't suppose they are in violation of anything with their nonprofit 501(c)3 status?
I'm doing some searches on FCPS and wow, it looks like they have all kinds of problems:
"VA sheriff refuses to honor ICE detainer for illegal alien arrested for groping 9 girls at Fairfax high school where he was student
Parents say that the school has "attempted to sweep it under the rug.""
"“There's a group of about 12 individuals that have reported this assault,” one mother told Nick Minock at 7News. Ortiz was charged with nine counts of assault and battery. “It was all perpetrated by a single individual who is a stranger to the girls," the mother went on. "He just sneakily walked up behind them and put his hand in between their legs. It was not just a butt smack or a butt grab. It was a groping of a private area. It had been occurring for several months.”"...
"When parents of the girls were asked about how the school has treated the situation, one of them said, “Abysmal, abysmal. I think from the very beginning, Fairfax County has attempted to diminish what happened to these girls.”" Ortiz is a junior and a legal adult.
There must be attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom who are aware of the Big mess in the Fairfax County Schools?
And, I absolutely agree with you that they should celebrate Detrans Awareness Day if they have to celebrate Trans Visibility Day. It's really sad how much public schools can deceive parents and harm children in their community. The schools should be educating the students, not pushing harmful ideology. It's so unreal what they are getting away with.
“As the DSM made the change to “gender dysphoria” in 2013 and the media adopted this fraud, it took off with the help of activist billionaires like the Pritzkers, Tim Gill, Jon Stryker, Marc Benioff, and Martin Rothblatt, especially after the Obergefell Supreme Court victory in 2015.”
I would be very interested to hear how it goes. FCPS ought to be in major legal trouble and all over the news. Same for this Prism Center which must exist elsewhere as well if this is merely a Northern VA chapter.
It is crazy how bad things still are. And, not just for those of us slammed by "trans" before understanding it was a thing.
This powerfully written post reminds me of an Andy Stanley podcast on forgiveness. I heard it back in 2020 when I was just two years estranged from my son. It helped as I hope this author's piece helps other grieving parents.
Now more than 7 years estranged, I mostly feel sad for my son. He was cannon fodder in the gender war. Poor kid. So smart, so sweet, so naive. That doesn't excuse what he did, rather it explains how I woefully underprepared him for evil in the world.
Here's a portion of the podcast transcribed. The first time I heard it I cried a river of tears.
It mirrors the author's post fairly closely.
The podcast is Your Move with Andy Stanley, episode "A Road Map for Life".
Early on he says:
If you don't deal with your demons, they go into the cellar of your
soul and lift weights.
About 22 minutes in:
The way to understand the hurt from your past and my past, the abuse from
your past and my past, the betrayal is it creates baggage. Because what
it does is essentially opens an account. The person who hurt you the most,
the person who betrayed you the deepest, those people essentially took something
from you. Which means what? It means they owe you.
What do they owe you? Perhaps your entire childhood. Perhaps they owe you
that first marriage. Maybe they owe you the opportunity to tuck your kids into
bed at night.
They took something from you which means they owe you. Which means the
account is open and you are waiting to be paid back and that's what creates
the baggage.
The waiting, the hoping, the longing, the injustice.
But here's the good news and bad news.
It's never going to happen.
It's good news because you can close the account. It's bad news because you wish the
account would stay open long enough for them close the account by paying back
what they owe you.
Let's be honest. They couldn't pay you back even if they wanted to. They can't
return the past. They can't restore that marriage. They can't give you that time
back with your kids. They can't restore your reputation. So how foolish of us,
even though it's completely understandable, to keep an open account with someone
waiting to be paid back when they're not going to pay us back and they couldn't
pay us back.
And all the time we wait, our demons are lifting weights. Moving with us from
season to season, relationship to relationship.
The way that we get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger and every form of malice
is by closing the account. By deciding to do precisely what they don't deserve
for me to do. I am going to forgive them. Because forgiveness is a decision.
But more specifically, forgiveness is a decision to cancel a debt. The way to
move ahead is by closing the account.
To close the account requires three things.
1. Identify who
2. Determine what was taken from you. This is the part everyone skips and gets
hung up. As long as you are trying to forgive generally you will never have
specific freedom. You need to write down exactly what they took from you.
Make a list.
*They took your dignity.
*He took my time.
*She took my 20s.
*He took my opportunity for education.
You just need to make a list because you have an open account and they actually
owe you and they actually can't pay you back. But you can't cancel the debt until
you know exactly what's been taken.
For some people this is a very, very painful exercise but for some people this
one step is key to being free to move on.
3. You declare it cancelled. Here's my list. God, I have written down what they
have taken from me. And they can't give it back anyway so why hang on to this?
Even if they showed up tomorrow they can't give back to me what they've taken from me.
I'm deciding to say you don't owe me anymore.
And when those old feelings rise up and when those emotions swell up you stop and
say, "No, that's an old debt. It's been cancelled." Over time our emotions catch
up with the reality of the decision we made.
Because I know how some of us are thinking, this is not about fairness.
Forgiveness is not fair. In most cases justice and fairness are out of reach.
This is about freedom. Freedom from the control of those who hurt you that
you continue to allow to hurt you because you won't close the account.
Cancel those debts. Close those accounts and keep them closed. Over time those
voices and those conversations will grow weaker and weaker and one day you'll
recognize and realize they are gone for good and you will be free.
Bravo! So thoughtful and so true. I reckon you are in Canada, and that country is going to suicide followed by the States if this madness doesn't stop. We had been hardly attacked by the tangible evils that want human destruction and produce chaos propitiating the rejection of the natural world (God). It used to be a mental condition of few now is a plague. You will find normalization, encouraging and affirmation in every show, movies, newstv, plays, etc. We are under attacked literally, people is getting used to the idea of see transgenders around and that is the most dangerous thing, when nobody anymore recognizes truth and reality. When men decided to be gods and create and artificial world where everyone is everything, whatever they believe or feel, but that few of us know that to be everything is to be nothing at the end. This is not an isolate phenomena, this is part of a culture of death starting with the killing of innocent children in abortions, so I wonder if we have the right to really tell our kids not to do this when we are offering them an evil society. Where do we cross the line? Do we have the moral authority? Like my neighbors' son who told her mother, a liberal pro choice and pro another maladies' Mom, "you think that kill babies is perfectly all right and you are telling me that I cannot be what I want and do what I want?. It has sense, we are all responsible in many degrees. In another time these gender dysphoria conditions would have been treated as what they are, but in these times they affirm them. And that means only one thing, that the loonies have joined the army, that the society also has a mental condition but a mental condition is not being crazy, but if we take our mental condition as something real no as a problem that have to be taken care of and we act on it, that is madness, so if we have a person that doesn't have self acceptance or has identity confusion and we tell them that they are not confused at all but that they have to accept that they are in the "wrong body" or the most pervert form "the gender that I was given at birth" (this one is the one that I start fight for when I ask-who gave me the gender because nobody wants to be responsible to give a gender that correspond to the biological reality just in case they are sued for "assuming wrong". And not only affirming a person that has a mental condition but convince them that they have "to look the part" (why to look the part if gender doesn't matter?) and do changes in their physical self so to pretend to be the opposite sex? Well that extreme shows how society had fallen into madness, the fact that anybody in this world can think that be transgender is a healthy thing and the right thing show how lost we are as a society. We need and must to find again sanity, reasoning and compassion and be the light not the darkness of our world.
So thankful for this post! Forgiveness is the only path, but it’s a path that’s hard to find, to surrender to. I have felt the same grief and anger as my granddaughter has succumbed to female-to-male medicalization as the answer to her anguish.. all with the support of my daughter and her family. So, it’s a double layer of forgiveness that is required. Let forgiveness be our healing salve!
WOW! I needed to see this right this very minute, and for that I thank YOU! Words I read and reread confused, as if I had written them
- "It became clear to me that I needed and wanted to forgive my son, along with the many others who have fed this destructive ideology in his life and celebrated the character he now portrays. It became an opportunity for me to further let go of my son, whom I love, recognizing that the only thing I can do for him is to pray for him and be ready for his return when that day comes."
- When that day comes. If that day comes. We have to have already done the forgiving because huge steps await us on that day, without time for us to stew in what was done, without time to ask questions. We have to be ready. On call. IF we are lucky enough to have that day to do that very hard work with our child. The tears we will shed in private as we are share a face of positivity to move forward. IF we are lucky to get that chance.
- "To forgive, I had to acknowledge that it was never going to be a “one and done” experience. Layer upon layer of hurt and grief becomes exposed in my day and each time I must choose to forgive him again…and again."
- yes it is a constant cycle of continued forgiveness and letting go and gosh it is frickin exhausting. I just want to wake up from this nightmare. Yet here we are. Trying not to drown. Constantly forgiving as much as we breathe.
and this paragraph: "Finally, I choose to forgive myself for the times I knew I had failed him..."
- this is where the real healing is, isn't it? Letting go of the "if only I had..." and realizing we are here. On the map.
- And as you also said, "To forgive my son I needed to acknowledge again just what he’s done and how he’s hurt my family and me over these past few years"
- Each of these young adults are adults. They are making their own (bad, awful, infuriatingly disgusting) choices, and they are an individual. Alas, we cannot save them. They must choose to save themselves.
THEN we will have the gift of doing the hard work and helping them heal and move forward. And we have to be ready for that, even if that day never comes.
Thank you for sharing this. So glad you have been able to forgive for your own health and well-being. In the end, we only can only control our words and our actions. By forgiving and embracing all the good you have in your life and letting go off all the anger, you can send more love into the world and even to your son. Your son is an adult, and he has to live with the consequences of his choices. This can be very painful. I don't know if I can ever forgive all the enablers who pry on these vulnerable young adults. I try to take action where I can. But I keep focused on what I can do. Keep living in the light! You deserved all the joy and happiness.
Huge empathy for you! You brave survivor. As the list went on my hatred grew for the malevolent, idiotic people who have captured your treasured son. They are horrible...
But my own family which appears to be wholly hetero - 5 kids/adults now - is divided on this issue. Mum is accommodating of trans but hears me out as does one daughter; my two sons are pretty close to my scathing contempt for the ideology and recognise mental health as being at the root of all this or are just bemused by the whole bizarre turn; two of my daughters seem to be really quite accommodating and accepting, passively promoting of trans ideology when they encounter it no doubt to do with friendship groups and needing to belong... there is very little debate going on between people in this extremely harmonious and healthy family. The trans-accepters don't really want their views challenged is my take on their position. Maybe I'm wrong. Do they see me as 'transphobic'? Probably. Do I care? Only in the sense that I feel they are being deeply unfair to me and don't understand that this isn't coming from any sense of hatred. It's a painful time, even in fully hetero contexts like ours. The question arises, are (some of ) my offspring contributing to the trans-ing of someone? I find the prospect appalling, if so.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Your experience and thoughts are 99% identical to mine. I have wrestled with being angry with my son for being stupid enough to believe in the trans ideology insanity and to be taken by it, along with being angry with him for destroying the beautiful, sweet son I had and the talented (in anything he did), athletically and intellectually gifted, creative, and fun person he was. I am angry and yet I forgive him for his inability to think clearly and to be lured into the trans cult online, in college, in a social contagion, and through an affirmation therapist. I am not sure if I'll ever see him again. I long to be with the son he was and the boy I raised. I had no idea that this was going to happen to me and my family. My husband and I were totally blindsided. The world is upside down and I can't believe it is real at times because trans ideology, its victimhood, and all of society that protects and pushes it is total insanity.
THIS! My daughter was the spitting image of her great grandmother, a renowned operatic singer. My daughter could sing like an angel, those high lilting notes that lifted you to the heavens....
Gone forever to testosterone therapy. I used to wonder how in those ancient cults, mother's could throw babies on burning pires. Now I see that the more precious the sacrifice, the more of a "real convert" you are. Its a twisted privilege to sacrifice time, talents, family, everything of value to this god.
I am so sorry. It is truly horrific what has happened to her and countless other sweet, talented girls with beautiful voices. I met girls who had detransitioned at the recent Trans Awareness Day event through Genspect in Washington D.C. Of two of these young women I spoke with, one had a surgery that gave her back a feminine voice. She talked about how testosterone had caused a swelling in her voicebox. It also made it so that she not scream and could someday lose her voice. Taking testosterone lowered her voice, as you know it does, and it took the ability of her to control her pitch. Her voice stayed low (so that it could be difficult for people to hear her alongside other voices in a group) and it took great energy for her to get her voice up. The surgery (that is risky from what another detrans young woman said to me) changed this and she said that her voice is different from the one she had (although it is now a feminine voice). Another detransitioner is too afriad to have the surgery because it is risky. I cannot believe that the world thinks that girls taking testosterone is good and healthy for them.
I should add that the other girl who has not had the surgery admitted that she has all of the problems I mentioned that the first girl had experienced above. We were talking together and all of this came up in the conversation.
What a powerful post! It reminds me once more that forgiveness is done for each of us in order to learn and move on so we can be happy. Thank you so much for sharing this.
So powerful. Thank you for articulating the thoughts that have been swirling around in my mind and heart for so long. This is so helpful, thank you 🙏🏼
I am often amazed at how every single PITT contribution brings a unique thought to the table. All of us are suffering from this bizarre and evil phenomenon that has swept through the Western world, but each parent's voice can tell us something new.
Thank you for sharing. Helped delineate or separate the need for forgiveness and at the same time not brushing over the pain your child has afflicted/has been affected. Your true love shown here is powerful and convicting for me. Praying for you and all of you. Remembering that God forgave/gives us.
Oh, My God! 🙏🏻 I needed to read this. It is as if you’ve written the words I’ve struggled to string together, pen in hand before a blank page waiting to be inked. I stare at it with vacant eyes and broken heart, knowing I need to scribe something that is hanging, but the words don’t come. You’ve captured the essence precisely. I’ve been searching for my lesson in this nightmare or something other than the prodigal son to glean hope. So thank you from a grieving, broken hearted mom still trying to make sense to move forward.
The image of a solo climber without safety ropes is a fitting image for this story.
I pray that this process will give you relief from these terrible experiences.
Thank you for this writing and I wish you the best of luck in this journey. I can forgive my daughter but will never forget! I have progressed from the red hot anger and mourning for my daughter in the beginning to a place of acceptance. We are on the 'low' contact list but we get no responses to our messages. Messages that she has sent us in the past have been so hostile & accusatory I am relieved to be free of them. It is also a relief that she lives in another country so I don't have to see the medicinal &, if any, surgical changes to her. As far as forgiving the trans cult industry, it is unlikely I can ever do that! God bless all the families touched by this evil cult.
Encouraging for the US:
"On March 10, 2026, the Fourth Circuit issued its decision in Anderson v. Crouch, reversing a lower court ruling that had required West Virginia’s Medicaid program to cover gender surgeries. The ruling is being processed in real time by both sides of this debate. We want to make sure our readers understand what the court actually held — and why, from LGBCC’s perspective, the legal reasoning matters well beyond this single case.
The background
West Virginia’s Medicaid plan covers a wide range of medical services but excludes “sex change” or “transsexual” surgeries. A class of plaintiffs diagnosed with gender dysphoria sued, arguing the exclusion violated the Equal Protection Clause, the Affordable Care Act, and the Medicaid Act. The district court agreed. So did the Fourth Circuit — initially. Then the Supreme Court vacated that decision and remanded in light of Last year’s Skrmetti decision.
On remand, the Fourth Circuit reversed. Unanimously.
What the court held
The panel’s analysis turns on two key questions that our organization gives a lot of thought to. The first is deceptively simple: does excluding coverage of, or banning, gender medical interventions classify people based on who they are, or based on what they’re being treated for?
The court’s answer is the latter. West Virginia doesn’t deny coverage to transgender people as a class. It declines to cover a specific diagnosis — gender dysphoria — for surgical treatment. Anyone, regardless of transgender status, can receive a vaginoplasty covered by West Virginia Medicaid if they have a qualifying diagnosis like congenital absence of a vagina (which is a rarebut actualcondition called vaginal agenesis). No one, regardless of sex or transgender status, can get that same procedure covered if the diagnosis is gender dysphoria. The exclusion is diagnosis-based, not identity-based.
This is the Skrmetti framework applied to adults and to the Medicaid context.
The evidence problem
The second question that the Fourth Circuit addressed is whether banning gender medical interventions, or excluding from coverage in the case of West Virginia, is a rational policy for states to adopt. (While Skrmetti dealt with a ban on procedures as opposed to West Virginia’s exclusion from Medicaid, the court deals with this succinctly: if a state can rationally prohibit these treatments — as the Supreme Court held Tennessee could for minors — then a state can certainly rationally decline to fund them.)
Here, as the Supreme Court did in Skrmetti, the Fourth Circuit engaged directly with the evidence — or rather, the lack of it, but this time looking at adults as well as minors. The opinion cites complication rates that the gender medicine industry has spent years downplaying. Phalloplasty carries a complication rate documented as high as 76.5%. More than half of male-to-female vaginoplasty recipients experienced complications within thirty days. Nearly forty percent required revision surgeries. The court also cites a study finding no mental health advantage from surgery compared to those who did not undergo it.
In finding that the state of West Virginia acted rationally, the panel’s conclusion is straightforward: West Virginia has legitimate, rational grounds — cost, contested efficacy, documented complication rates — to decline coverage. Disagreement among experts doesn’t save the mandate. It defeats it. When the science is genuinely contested, courts will defer to legislative judgment.
This opinion acknowledges the crux of what LGBCC has argued from the beginning. The evidentiary foundation for gender surgeries — at any age — does not meet the bar we require for other medical interventions covered by public funds. The ideology moved faster than the data, and institutions that uncritically adopted the ideology are now watching the legal architecture built around it come apart.
What this ruling does not do
We want to be precise. Anderson v. Crouch does not prohibit gender surgeries. It holds that West Virginia is not required to pay for them through Medicaid. The distinction matters legally, though LGBCC’s position goes further: we oppose the normalization and promotion of adult transition on the same evidentiary grounds the court articulates here. The evidence of benefit is weak. The evidence of harm is mounting. Public funding should follow evidence, not ideology — and so should medical practice.
Why this is part of a larger pattern
Skrmetti. Anderson v. Crouch. The Cass Review. The HHS Report. The systematic withdrawal of pediatric gender medicine protocols across the UK, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Norway. These are not isolated events. They are the predictable result of what happens when an experimental medical movement overreaches, captures institutions, and then encounters sustained, evidence-based scrutiny.
The courts are catching up. The question now is whether American medical institutions will."
"The Fourth Circuit just handed down a ruling that gender medicine advocates will hate, we know so because Erin in the Morn said so...
Here's a clear-eyed look at what it says, what it doesn't, and why the evidence problem isn't going away."
https://lgbcouragecoalition.substack.com/p/the-fourth-circuit-just-handed-down
I had thought that you wrote some of this until I clicked on the article you put in the attachment! I should have been watching the double quotations more closely. Ha! I love hearing this new. Thanks so very much for sharing it. What I am seeing here where I live really upsets me. There is a new NoVa Prism Center in McLean, (Northern) Virginia, that has a closet full of breast binders for youth to use (and borrow), children and adolescent trans story books, a community kitchen, arts and crafts, and over 1000+ LGBTQ+ publications, and offers help with connecting to an affirmation therapist, and more (see https://novaprismcenter.gay/). Parents have no clue that their children are going to this center that is within walking distance to places that parents allow their children to go (a teen center, the community center, McDonalds, etc). And, the public schools (Fairfax County Public Schools or FCPS) pushes one of the initial contacts a child will have with the trans movement by celebrating "Trans Day of Visibility." For example, a friend forwarded a flyer to me that says, "FCPS Board - Trans Day of Visibility Proclamation - March 26 - 7 pm - Luther Jackson MS - Please join us for the proclamation and group photo! It shows excited, striving, and colorful people (as online drawings) holding rainbow banners and rainbow flags that including the saying, "Allies Assemble" (with a rainbow heart and smily face next to is on the flag). I would like to find a FCPS parent group to talk to about this so that I can ask them to get them to know and be in touch with Genspect. It is so disheartening to see the trans pipeline being pushed on vulnerable youth and their families in this state. If you have any ideas, please let me know.
There's Erin Friday of Our Duty:
"Author: Erin Friday
September 22, 2024 Erin Friday Commentary
What Happens When Schools Secretly Socially Transition a Child?
I am sorry to have been quiet but I have been busy writing legal briefs in support of various cases on appeal across the nation on the subject of secret school transitions. Let me share with you some personal accounts the underscore the devastating results when schools deceive parents about their child’s gender confusion. These …"
https://ourduty.group/author/efriday/
"Erin Friday And The Army Of Angry Parents
An interview with the co-founder of Our Duty USA
Matt Osborne
Mar 24, 2026
Erin Friday is a former Democrat and an attorney. One day living in California, she discovered that her daughter’s school was supporting a secret social transition. After clawing her child back from the groomers, Friday was determined to fight for nationwide reform with an army of angry parents behind her. Now she says she wants to take down every school district that inflicts a secret transition on a family."
https://www.thedistancemag.com/p/erin-friday-and-the-army-of-angry
Erin Friday is so courageous. I wish that someone like her was here in Virginia.
There's been a lot going on in Loudoun County, VA - schools with a couple of girls getting assaulted by a boy in a skirt in the girls room, and later with boys saying they were uncomfortable with a trans identified girl in the boys locker room. Maybe they said she was a girl and got in trouble?
Anyway, this is a bunch of search results I haven't looked through completely but there would be lawyers practicing in VA who are experienced with this mess by now, I'd think:
1) Girls assaulted by boy in skirt:
"One of the two known sexual-abuse victims in Virginia’s Loudoun County school district is seeking $30 million in damages more than two years after she was assaulted in the girls’ bathroom by a “skirt-wearing” male student."
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/loudoun-county-sexual-assault-victim-sues-school-board/
"Judge Rules Loudoun County Teen Sexually Assaulted Female Student in Girls’ Bathroom"
https://www.yahoo.com/news/judge-rules-loudoun-county-teen-131413442.html
2) Boys uncomfortable with girl in locker room:
"History Repeats Itself In Loudoun County"
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/history-repeats-itself-in-loudoun-county/
"VA Finds 'Disturbing' Result in Loudoun County Trans Locker Room Case, Refers Case to DOJ"
https://cbn.com/news/us/va-finds-disturbing-result-loudoun-county-trans-locker-room-case-refers-case-doj
Very disheartening.
I don't expect that you would be successful asking them to give equal time to Detrans Awareness Day on March 12th?
I see that "NoVA Prism Center, Inc is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization, EIN 92-2161431" I don't suppose they are in violation of anything with their nonprofit 501(c)3 status?
I'm doing some searches on FCPS and wow, it looks like they have all kinds of problems:
"VA sheriff refuses to honor ICE detainer for illegal alien arrested for groping 9 girls at Fairfax high school where he was student
Parents say that the school has "attempted to sweep it under the rug.""
https://thepostmillennial.com/illegal-alien-adult-arrested-for-groping-12-girls-at-fairfax-high-school-after-enrolling-as-student
"“There's a group of about 12 individuals that have reported this assault,” one mother told Nick Minock at 7News. Ortiz was charged with nine counts of assault and battery. “It was all perpetrated by a single individual who is a stranger to the girls," the mother went on. "He just sneakily walked up behind them and put his hand in between their legs. It was not just a butt smack or a butt grab. It was a groping of a private area. It had been occurring for several months.”"...
"When parents of the girls were asked about how the school has treated the situation, one of them said, “Abysmal, abysmal. I think from the very beginning, Fairfax County has attempted to diminish what happened to these girls.”" Ortiz is a junior and a legal adult.
There must be attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom who are aware of the Big mess in the Fairfax County Schools?
https://adflegal.org/issues/parental-rights/
Sorry for any confusion regarding my post above!
And, I absolutely agree with you that they should celebrate Detrans Awareness Day if they have to celebrate Trans Visibility Day. It's really sad how much public schools can deceive parents and harm children in their community. The schools should be educating the students, not pushing harmful ideology. It's so unreal what they are getting away with.
I agree - and so many years in when there is so much evidence about how bad it is.
Thanks so much for your message. I will reach out to Alliance Defending Freedom to see what they say. Much appreciated.
You might appreciate:
“As the DSM made the change to “gender dysphoria” in 2013 and the media adopted this fraud, it took off with the help of activist billionaires like the Pritzkers, Tim Gill, Jon Stryker, Marc Benioff, and Martin Rothblatt, especially after the Obergefell Supreme Court victory in 2015.”
from:
“This Is Why There Is No Such Thing as Trans
The Whole Thing Is Nonsense
Kat Highsmith
Feb 25, 2026”
https://kathighsmith.substack.com/p/this-is-why-there-is-no-such-thing
That's a great article. It says it like it is. Thanks so much for sharing it.
I would be very interested to hear how it goes. FCPS ought to be in major legal trouble and all over the news. Same for this Prism Center which must exist elsewhere as well if this is merely a Northern VA chapter.
It is crazy how bad things still are. And, not just for those of us slammed by "trans" before understanding it was a thing.
I agree wholeheartedly.
This powerfully written post reminds me of an Andy Stanley podcast on forgiveness. I heard it back in 2020 when I was just two years estranged from my son. It helped as I hope this author's piece helps other grieving parents.
Now more than 7 years estranged, I mostly feel sad for my son. He was cannon fodder in the gender war. Poor kid. So smart, so sweet, so naive. That doesn't excuse what he did, rather it explains how I woefully underprepared him for evil in the world.
Here's a portion of the podcast transcribed. The first time I heard it I cried a river of tears.
It mirrors the author's post fairly closely.
The podcast is Your Move with Andy Stanley, episode "A Road Map for Life".
Early on he says:
If you don't deal with your demons, they go into the cellar of your
soul and lift weights.
About 22 minutes in:
The way to understand the hurt from your past and my past, the abuse from
your past and my past, the betrayal is it creates baggage. Because what
it does is essentially opens an account. The person who hurt you the most,
the person who betrayed you the deepest, those people essentially took something
from you. Which means what? It means they owe you.
What do they owe you? Perhaps your entire childhood. Perhaps they owe you
that first marriage. Maybe they owe you the opportunity to tuck your kids into
bed at night.
They took something from you which means they owe you. Which means the
account is open and you are waiting to be paid back and that's what creates
the baggage.
The waiting, the hoping, the longing, the injustice.
But here's the good news and bad news.
It's never going to happen.
It's good news because you can close the account. It's bad news because you wish the
account would stay open long enough for them close the account by paying back
what they owe you.
Let's be honest. They couldn't pay you back even if they wanted to. They can't
return the past. They can't restore that marriage. They can't give you that time
back with your kids. They can't restore your reputation. So how foolish of us,
even though it's completely understandable, to keep an open account with someone
waiting to be paid back when they're not going to pay us back and they couldn't
pay us back.
And all the time we wait, our demons are lifting weights. Moving with us from
season to season, relationship to relationship.
The way that we get rid of all bitterness, rage, anger and every form of malice
is by closing the account. By deciding to do precisely what they don't deserve
for me to do. I am going to forgive them. Because forgiveness is a decision.
But more specifically, forgiveness is a decision to cancel a debt. The way to
move ahead is by closing the account.
To close the account requires three things.
1. Identify who
2. Determine what was taken from you. This is the part everyone skips and gets
hung up. As long as you are trying to forgive generally you will never have
specific freedom. You need to write down exactly what they took from you.
Make a list.
*They took your dignity.
*He took my time.
*She took my 20s.
*He took my opportunity for education.
You just need to make a list because you have an open account and they actually
owe you and they actually can't pay you back. But you can't cancel the debt until
you know exactly what's been taken.
For some people this is a very, very painful exercise but for some people this
one step is key to being free to move on.
3. You declare it cancelled. Here's my list. God, I have written down what they
have taken from me. And they can't give it back anyway so why hang on to this?
Even if they showed up tomorrow they can't give back to me what they've taken from me.
I'm deciding to say you don't owe me anymore.
And when those old feelings rise up and when those emotions swell up you stop and
say, "No, that's an old debt. It's been cancelled." Over time our emotions catch
up with the reality of the decision we made.
Because I know how some of us are thinking, this is not about fairness.
Forgiveness is not fair. In most cases justice and fairness are out of reach.
This is about freedom. Freedom from the control of those who hurt you that
you continue to allow to hurt you because you won't close the account.
Cancel those debts. Close those accounts and keep them closed. Over time those
voices and those conversations will grow weaker and weaker and one day you'll
recognize and realize they are gone for good and you will be free.
Bravo! So thoughtful and so true. I reckon you are in Canada, and that country is going to suicide followed by the States if this madness doesn't stop. We had been hardly attacked by the tangible evils that want human destruction and produce chaos propitiating the rejection of the natural world (God). It used to be a mental condition of few now is a plague. You will find normalization, encouraging and affirmation in every show, movies, newstv, plays, etc. We are under attacked literally, people is getting used to the idea of see transgenders around and that is the most dangerous thing, when nobody anymore recognizes truth and reality. When men decided to be gods and create and artificial world where everyone is everything, whatever they believe or feel, but that few of us know that to be everything is to be nothing at the end. This is not an isolate phenomena, this is part of a culture of death starting with the killing of innocent children in abortions, so I wonder if we have the right to really tell our kids not to do this when we are offering them an evil society. Where do we cross the line? Do we have the moral authority? Like my neighbors' son who told her mother, a liberal pro choice and pro another maladies' Mom, "you think that kill babies is perfectly all right and you are telling me that I cannot be what I want and do what I want?. It has sense, we are all responsible in many degrees. In another time these gender dysphoria conditions would have been treated as what they are, but in these times they affirm them. And that means only one thing, that the loonies have joined the army, that the society also has a mental condition but a mental condition is not being crazy, but if we take our mental condition as something real no as a problem that have to be taken care of and we act on it, that is madness, so if we have a person that doesn't have self acceptance or has identity confusion and we tell them that they are not confused at all but that they have to accept that they are in the "wrong body" or the most pervert form "the gender that I was given at birth" (this one is the one that I start fight for when I ask-who gave me the gender because nobody wants to be responsible to give a gender that correspond to the biological reality just in case they are sued for "assuming wrong". And not only affirming a person that has a mental condition but convince them that they have "to look the part" (why to look the part if gender doesn't matter?) and do changes in their physical self so to pretend to be the opposite sex? Well that extreme shows how society had fallen into madness, the fact that anybody in this world can think that be transgender is a healthy thing and the right thing show how lost we are as a society. We need and must to find again sanity, reasoning and compassion and be the light not the darkness of our world.
So thankful for this post! Forgiveness is the only path, but it’s a path that’s hard to find, to surrender to. I have felt the same grief and anger as my granddaughter has succumbed to female-to-male medicalization as the answer to her anguish.. all with the support of my daughter and her family. So, it’s a double layer of forgiveness that is required. Let forgiveness be our healing salve!
WOW! I needed to see this right this very minute, and for that I thank YOU! Words I read and reread confused, as if I had written them
- "It became clear to me that I needed and wanted to forgive my son, along with the many others who have fed this destructive ideology in his life and celebrated the character he now portrays. It became an opportunity for me to further let go of my son, whom I love, recognizing that the only thing I can do for him is to pray for him and be ready for his return when that day comes."
- When that day comes. If that day comes. We have to have already done the forgiving because huge steps await us on that day, without time for us to stew in what was done, without time to ask questions. We have to be ready. On call. IF we are lucky enough to have that day to do that very hard work with our child. The tears we will shed in private as we are share a face of positivity to move forward. IF we are lucky to get that chance.
- "To forgive, I had to acknowledge that it was never going to be a “one and done” experience. Layer upon layer of hurt and grief becomes exposed in my day and each time I must choose to forgive him again…and again."
- yes it is a constant cycle of continued forgiveness and letting go and gosh it is frickin exhausting. I just want to wake up from this nightmare. Yet here we are. Trying not to drown. Constantly forgiving as much as we breathe.
and this paragraph: "Finally, I choose to forgive myself for the times I knew I had failed him..."
- this is where the real healing is, isn't it? Letting go of the "if only I had..." and realizing we are here. On the map.
- And as you also said, "To forgive my son I needed to acknowledge again just what he’s done and how he’s hurt my family and me over these past few years"
- Each of these young adults are adults. They are making their own (bad, awful, infuriatingly disgusting) choices, and they are an individual. Alas, we cannot save them. They must choose to save themselves.
THEN we will have the gift of doing the hard work and helping them heal and move forward. And we have to be ready for that, even if that day never comes.
Thank you so much for this.
Thank you for sharing this. So glad you have been able to forgive for your own health and well-being. In the end, we only can only control our words and our actions. By forgiving and embracing all the good you have in your life and letting go off all the anger, you can send more love into the world and even to your son. Your son is an adult, and he has to live with the consequences of his choices. This can be very painful. I don't know if I can ever forgive all the enablers who pry on these vulnerable young adults. I try to take action where I can. But I keep focused on what I can do. Keep living in the light! You deserved all the joy and happiness.
Huge empathy for you! You brave survivor. As the list went on my hatred grew for the malevolent, idiotic people who have captured your treasured son. They are horrible...
But my own family which appears to be wholly hetero - 5 kids/adults now - is divided on this issue. Mum is accommodating of trans but hears me out as does one daughter; my two sons are pretty close to my scathing contempt for the ideology and recognise mental health as being at the root of all this or are just bemused by the whole bizarre turn; two of my daughters seem to be really quite accommodating and accepting, passively promoting of trans ideology when they encounter it no doubt to do with friendship groups and needing to belong... there is very little debate going on between people in this extremely harmonious and healthy family. The trans-accepters don't really want their views challenged is my take on their position. Maybe I'm wrong. Do they see me as 'transphobic'? Probably. Do I care? Only in the sense that I feel they are being deeply unfair to me and don't understand that this isn't coming from any sense of hatred. It's a painful time, even in fully hetero contexts like ours. The question arises, are (some of ) my offspring contributing to the trans-ing of someone? I find the prospect appalling, if so.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. Your experience and thoughts are 99% identical to mine. I have wrestled with being angry with my son for being stupid enough to believe in the trans ideology insanity and to be taken by it, along with being angry with him for destroying the beautiful, sweet son I had and the talented (in anything he did), athletically and intellectually gifted, creative, and fun person he was. I am angry and yet I forgive him for his inability to think clearly and to be lured into the trans cult online, in college, in a social contagion, and through an affirmation therapist. I am not sure if I'll ever see him again. I long to be with the son he was and the boy I raised. I had no idea that this was going to happen to me and my family. My husband and I were totally blindsided. The world is upside down and I can't believe it is real at times because trans ideology, its victimhood, and all of society that protects and pushes it is total insanity.
THIS! My daughter was the spitting image of her great grandmother, a renowned operatic singer. My daughter could sing like an angel, those high lilting notes that lifted you to the heavens....
Gone forever to testosterone therapy. I used to wonder how in those ancient cults, mother's could throw babies on burning pires. Now I see that the more precious the sacrifice, the more of a "real convert" you are. Its a twisted privilege to sacrifice time, talents, family, everything of value to this god.
I am so sorry. It is truly horrific what has happened to her and countless other sweet, talented girls with beautiful voices. I met girls who had detransitioned at the recent Trans Awareness Day event through Genspect in Washington D.C. Of two of these young women I spoke with, one had a surgery that gave her back a feminine voice. She talked about how testosterone had caused a swelling in her voicebox. It also made it so that she not scream and could someday lose her voice. Taking testosterone lowered her voice, as you know it does, and it took the ability of her to control her pitch. Her voice stayed low (so that it could be difficult for people to hear her alongside other voices in a group) and it took great energy for her to get her voice up. The surgery (that is risky from what another detrans young woman said to me) changed this and she said that her voice is different from the one she had (although it is now a feminine voice). Another detransitioner is too afriad to have the surgery because it is risky. I cannot believe that the world thinks that girls taking testosterone is good and healthy for them.
Yes, even a feminized voice would not give her back what she has lost. But I didn't know they could salvage any of it.
I should add that the other girl who has not had the surgery admitted that she has all of the problems I mentioned that the first girl had experienced above. We were talking together and all of this came up in the conversation.
Sounds like women are being literally silenced
Very well worded. 💯
What a powerful post! It reminds me once more that forgiveness is done for each of us in order to learn and move on so we can be happy. Thank you so much for sharing this.