The Madras High Court building in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, which in late April ruled in two trans rights cases, Sivakumar v State of Tamil Nadu and Sivakumar v Union of India. Photo by Yoga Balaji on Wikimedia Commons.

Still catching up.

1. Vale Andrea Dos Passos (c. 1987–2024)
2. Biggs (2024) continues to grind axe about the Census
3. Dangaran (2024): For trans plaintiffs, ADA OK
4. United Nations: Alsalem uses her platform to boost Cass Review
5. Aotearoa NZ: Paid-for poll gives result paid for
6. Australia, WA: Liberals jump on the hate train
7. India: Madras HC tells governments to stop breaking the law
8. Iraq: Queer relationships, gender transition punishable by law
9. Mexico: Senate approves conversion therapy ban
10. Mexico: Electoral court clears transphobe Quadri to run
11. Russia: Tver Oblast Administration bans trans people from poetry prize (unfair advantage?)
12. Slovakia: Hlas trans healthcare debacle drags on
13. GB, England: Intricately woven by the Lord: same shit, different diocese
14. GB, Scotland: Bute House Agreement collapses, implications unclear
15. US: Red states “will not comply” with trans human rights
16. US, CA: Brockman v Kaiser Foundation Hospitals: Judge gives go-ahead
17. US, OH: New rule bans surgery which wasn’t happening anyway
18. US, OH: Moe v Yost: AG appeals block on care ban, says court’s reach exceeded grasp
19. US, TN: Hammond v Nashville: Covenant School shooter’s manifesto inching closer to release
20. US, TX: Abbott mulls trans teacher ban

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Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Orinam (ஓரினம்), an LGBTQIA+ advocacy group based in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India, for providing additional detailed information relating to Sivakumar v State of Tamil Nadu and Sivakumar v Union of India (story #7 in this issue). Orinam is a volunteer collective of LGBTQIA+ people and allies who provide a support, cultural and activist space for the queer and trans community.

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Vale Andrea Dos Passos (c. 1987–2024)

On 23 April, Andrea Doria Dos Passos,¹ a 37-year-old trans woman (Neammannee, 2024), was found dead outside the Miami City Ballet building at 2200 Liberty Avenue, Miami, Florida, United States. CCTV footage showed that Dos Passos, who was unhoused and, according to her family, mentally ill, had laid down there to sleep around 12 AM. She remained asleep until she was murdered by a passing attacker later in the morning. The primary cause of death appears to have been blunt force trauma to the skull inflicted with a piece of metal piping; her body also had puncture wounds at the time of recovery.

Dos Passos’ assailant was located, arrested and charged with second-degree murder on the same day as the killing. At present, his motive for killing Dosspassos is unclear (Batchelor & Morejon, 2024).

International

Academic

Biggs (2024) continues to grind axe about the Census

On 19 April 2024, Sociology, the journal of the British Sociological Association, published a research article, “Gender identity in the 2021 Census of England and Wales: How a flawed question created spurious data,” by Michael Biggs (2024). Naturally, neither Sociology nor any mass media coverage of the article known to me (Ward, 2024; etc.) mention that Biggs is an advisor to the Society for Evidence-based Gender Medicine (2024).

The 2021 Census of England and Wales included a question on transness: “Is the gender you identify with the same as your sex registered at birth?”. Biggs’ article attempts to advance a critique of this question sufficient to invalidate its findings. However, the article is, as you would probably expect at this point, absolutely riddled with errors, inaccuracies, and plainly intentional misrepresentations and lies to the point that I think I will probably need to do a follow-up Special on it. Stay tuned.

Dangaran (2024): For trans plaintiffs, ADA OK

On 21 April 2024, the Harvard Law Review published an essay, “Bending gender: Disability justice, abolitionist queer theory, and ADA claims for gender dysphoria,” by D Dangaran (2024).

The article is a response to the question of whether trans people who have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria should bring claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The ADA is a major avenue for trans people to seek legal relief from materially harmful anti-trans discrimination. The reason for this is that “gender dysphoria” is acknowledged as a medical condition by relevant diagnostic authorities, and is defined in such a way as to entail “clinically significant … impairment”; per Williams v Kincaid (2022), it can be considered a disability under the ADA. Therefore, anti-trans harm can be addressed by constructing it as ableism and/or denial of reasonable accommodations. This is particularly relevant for trans plaintiffs who are incarcerated and seeking to compel prison systems to provide them with the care to which they are entitled.

Dangaran examines an intervention by another prison litigator suggesting that lawyers should not bring anti-trans discrimination claims under the ADA. That litigator argues that: pursuing trans litigation through a disability framework places trans rights at the mercy of the cis medical authorities who define the GD diagnosis and issue diagnoses; that it puts trans people in the position of needing to construct themselves as people with an illness; that it creates systems which result in denial of care; and that the courts do not have the capacity to properly deal with the problem of institutional discrimination against trans people. Dangaran does a pretty capable job of steelmanning the argument, in my opinion, but ultimately takes the view that the ADA is preferable to the alternative.

As a disabled trans woman, I don’t know which side I’m on but it’s certainly an interesting read.

United Nations

Alsalem uses her platform to boost Cass Review

On 25 April, the United Nations (UN) News Centre published a release, “Gender therapy review reveals devastating impacts on teens” (2024), which appears to have originated from the office of Reem Alsalem, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women. The release endeavours at length to legitimise several falsehoods and fascist canards circulated in the Final Report of the Cass Review, and in the popular media in the wake of its publication. These include:

• treating the statistically predictable increase in trans kids presenting to NHS England’s Gender Identity Development Service, England’s paediatric gender service, as a crisis in need of intervention;
• presenting the claim by “transgender rights groups” that “there are long waiting lists for treatment,” which is objectively true, as questionable;
• lying that “health authorities” are “rapidly initiating permanent gender transition pathways”;
• presenting the unevidenced claim that “puberty blockers … could cause temporary or permanent disruption to brain maturation” as true;
• lying that the majority of people who detransition are transmasculine when in fact the majority, by a factor of greater than 2 to 1, are transfeminine (Turban et al., 2021).

Alsalem’s mandate, which she took up in August 2021, does not require her to be impartial, a fact on which she has extensively capitalised. Her tenure as special rapporteur has been characterised primarily by virulent anti-trans activism under colour of the execution of her office (see, e.g., “UN chief backs,” 2022; Barnes, 2024), to the point of provoking an outcry from several international organisations not specifically or traditionally concerned with the status of trans women (Morrison, 2022; Association for Women’s Rights in Development, 2023; Theilen, 2023; etc.).

For that matter, Alsalem herself is not supposed to be concerned with the status of trans people; trans affairs properly fall within the remit of the UN Independent Expert on Protection Against Violence and Discrimination Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity, currently Victor Madrigal-Borloz, whose views are significantly at odds with Alsalem’s (“UN chief backs,” 2022).

Aotearoa New Zealand

Paid-for poll gives result paid for

On 25 April, a poll commissioned by Family First New Zealand and conducted by Curia Market Research (2024) was published in a Family First press release on VOXY through Fuseworks Media (2024).

The poll surveyed 1,000 Kiwi adults, 750 by landline or mobile phone, 250 by online panel. It asked the following questions, reproduced here verbatim:

1. Do you believe that primary age children should be taught that they can choose their “gender” and that it can be changed through hormone treatment and surgery if they want it to be?
2. Would you support or oppose a law that prohibits primary schools from teaching any sexual issues, such as gender identity or sexual orientation, in the classroom as part of the curriculum in primary schools — that’s ages 5 up to 10 or 11 unless parents specifically opt their children into these classes.
3. The UK health service (the NHS) has stopped the use of puberty blockers, which begin the gender transition, for children under 16 as it deemed they are too young to consent. Do you support or oppose a similar ban in New Zealand on the use of puberty blockers for young people 16 or younger?
4. Some people have proposed banning puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and physical sex-change surgeries for children under the age of 18 who identify as transgender. Would you support or oppose this kind of ban?
5. If a young person says they want to change their gender, should the treatment be primarily based on providing puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones, or should the treatment primarily focus on dealing with the gender dysphoria and any other underlying mental health issues.
6. Do you think the taxpayers should fund surgery or hormone treatments for adults who wish to change their gender?

Every question returned strong majorities in the sample and among all subgroups for the anti-trans option. However, I’m not really putting much stock in it because it’s a comically obvious push poll — with that many leading questions and that much priming, the point of it is plainly less to provide accurate data about what Kiwis believe, and more to give Family First NZ a pretext to claim that their views are normal.

Australia

Western Australia

WA Liberals jump on the hate train

On 22 April, Libby Mettam MLA (LPA–Vasse), Leader of the Liberal Party Western Australia,² announced that if elected, a Liberal Government of Western Australia would “ban the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments and surgical intervention for children under the age of 16 for the purpose of gender transition” (Mettam, 2024). The Party press release carrying the announcement cited the Final Report of the Cass Review (2024) as well as Ruuska et al. (2024), both of which have been the subject of previous SP Weekly coverage.

The WA Liberals’ new policy has, of course, already been endorsed by Binary Australia, Family First, Family Voice Australia, the Institute of Public Affairs, and Women’s Forum Australia (Watson, 2024).

On 23 April, The Spectator Australia published an article by Maryka Groenewald of the Australian Christians, another WA political party, reflecting, unsurprisingly, a similar position to the Liberal Party (Groenewald, 2024).

India

Federal

Madras HC tells governments to stop breaking the law

During April, the Madras High Court ruled on, among others, two actions relevant to SP Weekly, Sivakumar v State of Tamil Nadu and Sivakumar v Union of India, referred to here as State of Tamil Nadu and Union of India respectively. Both were writ petitions, a type of judicial complaint which seeks a prerogative writ (a court order against the government). Both were brought by the same petitioner, Sivakumar TD, an activist affiliated with Nirangal, a Chennai-based advocacy group with a focus on queer and trans rights (Nirangal, 2015).

For context, the prevailing legal gender recognition regime in India operates according to, among other things, the Supreme Court of India’s 2014 decision in National Legal Services Authority v Union of India (hereafter referred to as NALSA). The Supreme Court’s ruling in NALSA provides that it is illegal for Indian governments, federal or state, to impose a basis for legal gender recognition other than self-determination.

On 4 April, the Court ruled in State of Tamil Nadu. That case related to the publication of name and gender changes in the official gazette of the Tamil Nadu state government. State officials had been requiring trans people who wanted their name and gender changes gazetted to produce either proof of having undergone sex reassignment surgery (SRS), or a state Social Welfare Department third-gender identity card.

Sivakumar contended that this requirement was unlawful given the NALSA ruling and the federal Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment’s Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Rules, 2020. They therefore sought a writ of mandamus compelling the State of Tamil Nadu to gazette name and gender changes without requiring the documents in question. The Court made the requested order.

On 29 April, the Court ruled in Union of India. That case related to changes of gender marker in passports. Officials of the Indian federal justice and foreign ministries had not been requiring trans people to produce proof of SRS if they wanted to change their passport gender marker to T (transgender, i.e., third gender), but had been requiring it if they wanted to change it to either male or female, based on certain provisions of the Passport Rules, 1980.

Sivakumar contended that this requirement was unlawful given the NALSA ruling. They therefore asked the Court to enjoin the operation of the affected provisions of the Rules, declare them unconstitutional, and direct the respondents to process gender changes without them. Ultimately, the respondents opted to update the Rules to be NALSA-compliant, and the Court dismissed the case for mootness.

Iraq

Federal

Queer relationships, gender transition punishable by law

On 27 April, the Council of Representatives of Iraq, the country’s de facto unicameral legislature,³ passed the Act amending Act No. 8 (Anti-Prostitution) of 1988. The Bill for the Act was moved in August 2023 by Raed Maliki⁴ (Ind–Maysan 1).

At date, no Arabic source text is available through the Council’s website and I am therefore unable to independently analyse the provisions. According to various Western media, the Act, on the text passed, provides that:

• same-sex relationships are punishable by imprisonment for 10 to 15 years (Armstrong, 2024;
• “promoting homosexuality” is punishable by imprisonment for up to 7 years (Mando & Kourdi, 2024) — this is possibly also true of promoting “sexual deviancy” (Zeyad & Abdul-Zahra, 2024);
• “biological sex changes based on personal desires and inclination” are punishable by imprisonment for 1 to 3 years, and the relevant provisions include both gender-affirming care providers and trans people (Armstrong, op. cit.; Mando & Kourdi, op. cit.);
• “intentionally” acting like a woman while being (regarded by the law as) a man is punishable by imprisonment, although none of my sources indicate for what term (Armstrong, op. cit.).

Mexico

Senate approves conversion therapy ban

On 25 April, the Senado de la República (“Senate of the Republic”) approved a legislative package amending the Código Penal Federal (“Federal Penal Code“) and Ley General de Salud (“General Health Law“) to institute a ban on conversion therapy. At press time, I was not able to locate the text of the laws as passed on the Senate website.

Electoral court clears transphobe Quadri to run

According to ADF International (2024), in the week of 14–20 April inclusive, the Tribunal Electoral del Poder Judicial de la Federación (TEPJF; “Electoral Tribunal of the Federal Judiciary⁵“) declared Gabriel Quadri de la Torre, the Partido Acción Nacional (PAN)-affiliated deputy for Mexico City’s 23rd district, eligible to seek re-election.

Quadri’s eligibility had been challenged by the Movimiento Regeneración Nacional (MORENA; “National Regeneration Movement”), the populist progressive party which leads the government bloc in the Congress of the Union. The basis for the challenge was a 2022 finding by the TEPJF’s Specialised Chamber that a number of transphobic actions and written statements on Quadri’s part targeting others including Lia Thomas and transfem fellow deputy Salma Luévano Luna amounted to violencia política contra las mujeres en razòn de género (“gender-based political violence against women”) (Sala Regional Especializada, 2022).

The finding of electoral eligibility does not vacate Quadri’s original conviction of political violence. The Christian Post reports Quadri is working with ADF International to have that conviction examined by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, one of the human rights organs of the Organisation of American States (OAS) (Foley, 2024).

Russia

Tver Oblast

Oblast Administration bans trans people from poetry prize (unfair advantage?)

On 16 April, Reuters reported that the Tver Oblast Administration has banned trans people from entering the 2024 Andrei Dementyev All-Russian Poetry Prize (Papachristou, 2024). This is not a requirement which the Prize has previously imposed (Russell, 2024).

The ban has been implemented through the addition of a new question to this year’s entry form (Tver Oblast Administration, “Application to participate,” n.d.), asking whether the applicant has Изменял(а) пол izmenyal(a) pol (“changed gender”, “cheated gender”). The applicant requirements sheet (Tver Oblast Administration, “Requirements for applicants,” n.d.) gives the following rationale:

В целях сохранения традиционных для российского общества и разделяемых всеми традиционными религиозными конфессиями представлений о браке, семье, материнстве, отцовстве, детстве к участию в Конкурсе не допускаются граждане, сменившие пол

V tselyakh sokraheneniya traditsionnykh dlya rossiyskogo obshchestva i razdelyayemykh vesemi raditsionnymi religioznymi konfessiyami predstavleniy o brake, sem’ye, materinstve, ottsovstve, detstve k uchastiyu v Konkurse ne dopuskayutsya grazhdane, smenivshiye pol.

In order to preserve the ideas about marriage, family, motherhood, paternity, and childhood which are traditional to Russian society and shared by all traditional religious confessions, citizens who have changed their gender are not allowed to participate in the Competition.

Nef Cellarius, Germany-based programme coordinator for Vykhod (“Coming Out”), a Russian LGBTQ+ advocacy group, told Reuters (Papachristou, 2024) that the Oblast Administration’s action was likely a show of loyalty to the administration of President Vladimir Putin (ONF). The federal government, controlled by United Russia under Putin’s leadership, has in recent years been pursuing an increasingly radicalised anti-queer and anti-trans line, finally escalating to the point of banning gender-affirming care in Russia altogether in 2023 (Papachristou, 2023).

Slovakia

Hlas trans healthcare debacle drags on

Previous coverage: SP Weekly #6.09.

On 22 April, the Health Ministry of the Slovak Republic told the Human Rights Committee of the National Council of the Slovak Republic that it intended to hold a roundtable discussion with representatives of the Interior and Justice Ministries, as well as “representatives of experts and” Slovak trans people (TASR, 2024).

The decision comes in the wake of the Health Ministry’s abrupt withdrawal last month of the Standard procedure for the diagnosis and comprehensive management of adults with transsexualism, the state-issued standard of care for trans healthcare. Slovak trans advocates identified that decision as likely a political decision made by or on behalf of the poltiical party Hlas–SD, which is a member of the government coalition in the National Council, is represented in the current Fico IV coalition executive, and controls the Health Ministry. Commentators linked Hlas’ motive for the action with the at-that-time pending Slovak presidential election, which was contested and ultimately won by Hlas candidate Peter Pellegrini.

United Kingdom

England and Wales

“Intricately woven by the Lord”: same shit, different diocese

On 24 April, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales (CBCEW) published a statement, Intricately woven by the Lord: A pastoral reflection on gender by the Catholic Bishops of England and Wales (Catholic Bishops’ Conference of England and Wales, 2024). The statement places itself in the context of Amoris laetitia and Dignitas infinita and is theologically basically of a piece with them. Elements of the statement which stood out to me include that:

• it raises a grievance about “holders of traditional theories being cancelled or even losing their jobs” (p. 2);
• it makes reference to “gender ideology” (pp. 4, 10), which has been relatively unusual for the documents issued under Francis’ pontificate that I’m familiar with, likely because it tends to highlight the Church’s role in fabricating that concept itself;
• it seems to echo TERF projective rhetoric about “reducing people to genitals,” saying specifically “A person cannot be reduced to one element of his or her being, such as his or her body or sex/gender” (p. 6);
• it explicitly says “We are to honour our body resisting medical interventions, intended to ‘reassign gender where these destroy the body’s fertility or sexual function … all and especially ‘the young need to be helped to accept their own body as it was created’” (p. 7);
• it seems to refer obliquely and positively to the current British political trans-eliminationist status quo, saying, “Whilst mindful of the legal constraints within which many of our institutions operate, we are aware that currently the law is generous to and supportive of Catholic life and mission in this particular area” (p. 9);
• it further says that “we cannot encourage or give support to reconstructive or drug based medical intervention that harms the body” (although “This does not apply to medical interventions aiming at resolving genital ambiguity,” apparently), “[n]or can we legitimise or uphold a way of living that is not respectful of the truth and vocation of each man and each woman, called to live according to the divine plan” (pp. 9–10);

it further says that “Medical intervention for children should not be supported. It should also be recognised that social ‘transition’ (living in the opposite gender role) can have a formative impact on a child’s development and can set a child on a path towards later medical interventions. Care should be taken to avoid this especially with young children” (p. 10).

The Tablet of London reports that Vincent Cardinal Nichols, the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, says the document “was a pastoral reflection, not a doctrinal statement” (Gledhill, 2024), but all that tells me is that the bishops are cowards.

Scotland

Bute House Agreement collapses, implications unclear

On 25 April, the Cooperation Agreement Between the Scottish Government and the Scottish Green Party Parliamentary Group (Bute House Agreement), a Scottish Government power-sharing deal between the Scottish National Party (SNP) and Scottish Greens, collapsed.

I understand the primary cause of the collapse is that the SNP has decided to abandon the Scottish Government target of a 75% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (“Scottish government scraps climate change targets,” 2024).

However, BBC coverage suggests (Bonar & Cook, 2024) at least some Greens are motivated by the decision of the Gender Service at Sandyford to voluntarily stop referring trans kids to access puberty blockers. That decision was made by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, a board of NHS Scotland, itself an agency of the Scottish Government, and thus a number of Scottish Greens consider the Yousaf Government to be responsible. Jen Bell, the co-convenor of the Rainbow Greens, said the Sandyford decision violated a Bute House Agreement promise to “put trans patients at the heart of decisions on their own healthcare” (ibid.).

The Scottish Greens’ statement announcing the collapse certainly seems to bear out a social policy cause — the statement does not make specific factual claims but is scathing in tone, accusing the SNP of “selling out future generations to appease the most reactionary forces in the country,” fomenting “chaos, culture wars, and division,” and characterising Yousaf as not having “the fortitude or the bravery” to be anything other than a puppet of “the most reactionary and backward-looking forces within [the SNP]” (Scottish Greens, 2024).

The Scottish Conservatives announced they would move no confidence. During the drafting of this article it seemed that Yousaf would have to negotiate with Ash Regan MSP (Alba–Edinburgh Eastern) to survive. Given that Regan quit the MSP as a protest specifically against liberalisation of trans rights law this seemed like an almost absurdly unlucky turn of affairs. However, ultimately, while Yousaf has resigned, the SNP Government itself survived the vote of no confidence 70 votes to 58 (Smout, 2024).

United States

Federal

Red states “will not comply” with trans human rights

Previous coverage: SP Weekly #7.19.

Multiple states have reacted to the Biden administration’s new regulations around Title IX and the Affordable Care Act § 1557 by asserting that they will not comply with them, or words to that effect. States which have so far joined this effort include:

• Arkansas (DeMillo, 2024);
• Florida (Nerozzi, 2024; Suter, 2024);
• Louisiana (Brumley, 2024);
• Oklahoma (Nerozzi, op. cit.);
• South Carolina (Bowdey, 2024);
• Texas (DeMillo, op. cit.).

California

Brockman v Kaiser Foundation Hospitals: Judge gives go-ahead

On 22 April, the California state Superior Court for the County of San Joaquin issued an order in Brockman v Kaiser Foundation Hospitals allowing the case to proceed rather than being diverted to compulsory arbitration.

Plaintiff Chloe E. Brockman (she/her) is an ideologically motivated detransitioned activist known professionally as Chloe Cole. Lead defendant Kaiser Foundation Hospitals is the healthcare system which provided her with gender-affirming care.

I personally dislike Cole, think she’s dishonest and unethical, and think the political ends that she and her sponsors intend to advance by litigating this case are destructive. However, I also think corporations’ ability to force healthcare consumers into compulsory pre-trial arbitration is a disease. Consequently, I think this was a fair enough reason for Judge Robert Waters to issue this order and it’s hard for me to feel any particular way about this.

See also Julie Rei Goldstein (2024) covering this story for Assigned Media.

Ohio

New rule bans surgery which wasn’t happening anyway

On 15 April, the Ohio General Assembly “cleared the way” for an administrative rule to be issued providing that gender reassignment surgery (GRS) may not be provided to trans people under 18 in Ohio (BeMiller, 2024). Based on the information provided, the rule in question was likely two rules, Ohio Admin Code §§ 3701-59-06 & 3701-83-60.

However, as Ohio gender-affirming care providers say they don’t provide GRS to under-18s anyway (BeMiller, op. cit.), it’s unclear what effect either rule has beyond sound and fury.

Moe v Yost: AG appeals block on care ban, says court’s reach exceeded grasp

Previous coverage: SP Weekly #5.36, #7.27.

On 22 April, Dave Yost, the Republican state Attorney General of Ohio filed an emergency motion with the Supreme Court of the State of Ohio, seeking to overturn an order of the Franklin County Court of Common Pleas preventing Ohio’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans kids, HB 68 of 2024, from commencing in effect. Yost argues that the order, issued by Judge Michael Holbrook in the case of Moe v Yost, is illegal because it is overbroad in scope; he contends that it should only prevent enforcement of the parts of HB 68 specifically challenged by the plaintiffs in that case, and only against those plaintiffs (Henry, 2024).

Tennessee

Hammond v Nashville: Covenant School shooter’s manifesto inching closer to release

Previous coverage: SP Weekly #7.29.

On 22 April, the Tennessee Chancery Court for Davidson County made orders in Hammond v Nashville. Per SP Weekly‘s previous coverage of the case, plaintiffs James Hammond et al., through counsel from right-wing activist litigant group Judicial Watch, seek to compel defendants the Metropolitan Government of Nashville to turn over documents held by the Metro Nashville Police Department which were written by the Covenant School shooter of 27 March 2023.

While Judge l’Ashea Myles did not order that the documents be released, she did order the Metropolitan Government and Metro Nashville PD to provide her with additional information on when they could be released, according to The Daily Wire (LeMahieu, 2024).

Texas

Abbott mulls trans teacher ban

On 26 April, Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R), in remarks to the Young Conservatives of Texas convention in Dallas, suggested his administration might ban teachers who are trans from presenting as their correct gender. When publicised, the idea received immediate and emphatic support from state GOP figures, including

• State Rep. Briscoe Cain (R–HD128);
• Brent Money, Republican candidate for House District 2;
• Matt Rinaldi, chair of the Texas Republican Party (Scherer, 2024).

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Footnotes

1. Sources gave Dos Passos’ name variously as “Andrea Dosspassos” and “Andrea Dos Passos”. I judged that the latter seemed more likely. ↩︎
2. Official name per the Western Australian Electoral Commission (n.d.). ↩︎
3. The Iraqi situation is somewhat unusual. The authority for the Council of Representatives is provided by the Iraqi Constitution of 15 October 2005. According to article 48 of that Constitution, Iraq has a bicameral legislature of which the Council of Representatives is the lower chamber; the upper chamber is the Federation Council. However, article 65 of the same Constitution also stipulates that the task of providing for and establishing the Federation Council belongs to the Council of Representatives. As the Council of Representatives has taken no meaningful action to establish the Federation Council, the Federation Council therefore does not “yet” exist and the Council of Representatives de facto functions as the single chamber of a unicameral legislature. ↩︎
4. Spelling per Iraqi Council of Representatives (n.d.). ↩︎
5. Strictly, the Electoral Tribunal of the Judicial Power of the Federation. However, when it appears in the name of an organisation, the Spanish phrase “poder judicial” (literally, “judicial power”) is typically rendered in English as “judiciary”. ↩︎

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