Some Democrats realize they have a problem with transgender orthodoxy, but not New York Attorney General Letitia James—she’s doubling down.
Last week, she fired Glenna Goldis, the assistant attorney general at the Consumer Frauds and Protection Bureau, apparently for the crime of expressing concern about the mutilation of children.
Goldis announced her departure in a lengthy post on X. She claimed James fired her “for speaking out against pediatric gender medicine.”
“James supports ‘transitioning’ kids with puberty blockers, hormones, and surgery,” Goldis noted. “She sued the federal government to protect the [pediatric gender medicine] industry from investigations and funding cuts. And she argued (dubiously) that doctors who decline to offer [pediatric gender medicine] are liable for ‘discrimination.’”
Goldis rightly expressed concern that when the medical industry endorses experimental transgender medical interventions for minors—what the Left has euphemistically termed “gender-affirming care” and President Donald Trump’s administration has more accurately called “sex-rejecting procedures”—that arguably involves a “dangerous consumer fraud.”
Transgender Consumer Fraud?
When a doctor diagnoses a minor with “gender dysphoria”—the painful and persistent condition of identifying with the gender opposite one’s sex—the doctor may go on to prescribe “puberty blockers” (drugs that law enforcement uses to chemically castrate sex offenders), cross-sex hormones (which often cause permanent interventions in a person’s body to make them appear like the opposite sex), or surgeries to remove breasts or genitals. (Advocates assure Americans that minors do not undergo such surgery, but one study revealed that at least 3,500 minors have gone under the knife.)
The Department of Health and Human Services has determined that there is “extremely weak evidence” for any positive impact of such interventions, while the harms are real, obvious, and concrete. Detransitioners—those who previously identified as transgender but reverted to identifying with their biological sex—like Chloe Cole, Prisha Mosley, and Simon Price, have shared horrific stories about how these interventions harmed them, trying to prevent others from suffering the same experience.
Detransitioners have started filing lawsuits against the medical providers who urged them to mutilate their bodies, and attorneys estimate that these lawsuits could yield settlements of $10 million.
Goldis’ concerns are very real, and quite warranted—regardless of your position on these interventions. James would have been wise to listen to her.
‘Treated Me Like a Pest’
Instead, she says, “James’ officials treated me like a pest.”
Goldis said that the general counsel identified an objectionable line in her blog—a line where Goldis merely restated the opinion in U.S. v. Skrmetti, where the Supreme Court rightly held that it is not unconstitutional discrimination to protect minors from these interventions.
While the New York attorney general’s ethics chief warned Goldis that it was unethical to take public legal positions that conflict with James’, Goldis claimed the Rule of Professional Conduct stated no such thing.
By the way, Goldis isn’t some right-wing conservative nutjob. She’s a lesbian, a “member of the LGBTQ community” that James purports to champion. Goldis says her “social circles are full of progressive lawyers,” who “tend to be leery” of pediatric gender medicine.
Goldis also expressed a concern I’ve been hearing for years from feminist lesbians—transgender ideology is homophobic in practice because it encourages young people who might otherwise identify as gay or lesbian that they’re “really” straight and members of the opposite sex. Goldis stops short of calling transgender medicine a form of “conversion therapy,” but she does note that it may be “homophobic.”
Goldis told the New York Post that she’s in contact with First Amendment lawyers and is considering a lawsuit.
“The Office of the Attorney General has rules and protocols for employees who engage in activities that can impact the work, operations, or integrity of the office,” a James spokesperson told the Post. “This former employee’s flagrant and repeated disregard of these rules and protocols disrupted and undermined our efforts to protect the rights of all New Yorkers.”
Whether Goldis sues or not, the firing underscores how much of a liability the transgender issue is for Democrats.
By firing Goldis, James isn’t just silencing opposition to her radical transgender agenda—she’s preventing an ally from providing an important wake-up call about the need to think of transgender “medicine” as a form of consumer fraud.
It is consumer fraud, and it is absolutely shameful that Letitia James would rather fire Glenna Goldis than face that difficult truth.