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35 Yale J.L. & Feminism 223 (2024)
"Demons and Imps": Misinformation and Religious Pseudoscience in State Anti-Transgender Laws

handle is hein.journals/yjfem35 and id is 227 raw text is: Demons and Imps: Misinformation and Religious Pseudoscience in State Anti-Transgender Laws Anne Alstottt, Melisa Olgun, Henry Robinsontt, and Meredithe McNamarattt ABSTRACT: In a hearing before the Florida House of Representatives, Rep. Webster Barnaby addressed transgender witnesses as demons and imps who come and parade before us and pretend that you are part of this world. Barnaby's remarkably candid statement is an outlier because it reveals that religion-rather than sound science-underlies the new wave of anti- transgender laws that have been adopted by at least 20 states since 2021, with the vast majority enacted in 2023. In legislatures, courts, and agency hearings, proponents of anti-trans measures - in contrast to Barnaby - frame their arguments in scientific terms, contending that biology and medicine dictate exceptionalist treatment of transgender people. In this Article, we make three contributions. First, we debunk these purported scientific claims, showing (with full citations to the scientific literature) that the core arguments for anti-trans laws rest on misinformation (defined as false information that could, with due diligence, be determined to be false) and religious pseudoscience (defined as statements that use scientific vocabulary but rest on religious tenets and defy sound science). We closely examine key state legal documents, including legislation, attorney general opinions, and administrative agency documents. Our analysis shows that the core and repeated scientific arguments in these documents defy sound science and rest, instead, on religious principles about the binary nature of sex and gender and the corruption of secular society. Second, we show that the playbook of misinformation and pseudoscience that has long fueled anti-LGBTQIA+ and anti-abortion laws is now being deployed by conservative religious organizations to promote and defend anti-trans laws. Not all religious organizations oppose transgender and t Alstott is the Jacquin D. Bierman Professor at Yale Law School. tt Robinson and Olgun are students at Yale Law School. ttt McNamara is Assistant Professor of Pediatrics, Yale School of Medicine. Copyright © 2024 by the Yale Journal of Law and Feminism

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