“Trans” has broken the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals
Olympus Spa v. Armstrong and "swinging dicks"
March 13, 2026
This post was intended to be about a recent ruling out of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals that states can ban Medicaid coverage of so-called “gender-affirming” surgery for adults. Great news! I might still write about that at some point.
However, because of a ruling that came out yesterday, it’s now going to be about how “trans” has now broken the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the context of a federal legal case about whether women have penises.
But first …
On Thursday, it was announced that an EU court has ruled that a member state (in this instance, Bulgaria) must allow people to change their “gender.” According to the group SEEN IN Journalism:
Self-ID is being stretched across the EU not by a specific self-ID law, but via other laws: such as data protection, privacy, and freedom of movement. Likewise the motion on conversion therapy, which passed a couple of weeks ago, isn’t a law but it’s a principle that will now govern all EU policies, training, diversity strategies and documents.
This latest means that when you exert your ‘freedom of movement ’ your government now has to give you a new ID and register you as the opposite sex according to EU law.
I don’t know exactly what impact this will have, but it is clearly not a positive development for women and girls in Europe.
A professor at UC Riverside (they/them, thank you very much) would like to abolish the words “gay” and “lesbian,” because “trans.” According to the LGB Courage Coalition’s weekly news roundup:
A ridiculous new book by Brandon Robinson, a UC Riverside associate professor of, surprise, Gender and Sexuality Studies, argues that sexual identity categories like “gay” and “lesbian” should be abolished. Robinson says those words harm trans people.
The book, Trans Pleasure: On Gender Liberation and Sexual Freedom, published by UC Press, is based on interviews with men who identify as women and their discussions on Reddit about dating and sex. Robinson’s central argument is that words like “gay” or “lesbian” rely on “gender essentialism” -- the assumption that male and female are stable, biologically grounded categories. Because trans ideology rejects that assumption, Robinson concludes the old labels must go.
“If being ‘gay’ means being a man attracted to men, it assumes ‘man’ is a stable, inherent category,” Robinson told UCR News.
And that’s the problem!
“History shows the definition of manhood is constantly changing,” Robinson explained, adding that “gender essentialism also harms trans people, who often complicate those binary boundaries.”
Asked whether abolishing labels like “gay” and “lesbian” risks dismantling the communities that have organized under them -- and the political protections those communities fought for -- Robinson replied, “I think the risk is worth it.” Of course they do.
But this post is about how “trans” has broken the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in the context of a federal case about whether women have penises. The case is Olympus Spa v. Armstrong. It involves a federal judge who used the phrase “swinging dicks” in a published legal opinion. You’re going to want to read this one. It’s a doozy.
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