Kulturkampf

[Ribosome]

There was now a dawning awareness within the administration, another Biden aide told me, that its allies in the L.G.B.T.Q. movement had overstated the medical case for pediatric gender-affirming care. Unwilling to abandon the broader cause of trans rights, and wary of arbitrating a contentious medical debate, aides drafted statements clarifying that Levine didn’t speak for the administration. “We believe these surgeries should be limited to adults,” the White House told one outlet.

There was also growing tension between the A.C.L.U. and the Justice Department, three former government officials told me. (The A.C.L.U. and a spokeswoman for Prelogar denied this account.) In later briefs to the court, the administration would brush off the Alabama revelations as “out-of-context excerpts” from “a different case.” In private, though, some administration lawyers worried that their allies had pushed them onto thin scientific ice.

Just as WPATH’s internal emails began trickling into public view, the Supreme Court announced that it would hear Skrmetti. Not long after, Levine’s requests to WPATH were reported by The Times. White House officials were blindsided, several told me. Though Levine would later tell Biden aides that she had been trying to protect the president, the West Wing saw it differently: Her request could suggest that the administration thought there should be no minimum ages at all. “Everyone was like, holy cow — did Rachel Levine really go out and lobby for 9-year-olds to get surgery?” one former Biden aide told me. (Levine’s spokesman says she based “all policy recommendations on the best available science.”)

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/magazine/scotus-transgender-care-tennessee-skrmetti.html?unlocked_article_code=1.QU8.WlGp.Qvq-FiFzMjvI&smid=url-share

Damning article.