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The Anti-Trans Movement Protested Outside the U.S. Supreme Court

Today, the Telegraph reports on a 17-year-old’s identity without asking them

Tucker Lieberman
7 min readDec 9, 2024
Telegraph headline: My daughter’s school convinced her she was transgender — and didn’t tell me. January Littlejohn claims she was told she was ‘harming’ her child by not affirming her new identity. Photo of January Littlejohn speaking. She has long blonde hair and is wearing a green sweater as she speaks from a podium into a microphone, holding a printed speech.
Telegraph, 9 December 2024

Today, the Telegraph (UK) published a 1,000-word profile of January Littlejohn, the mother of a teenager in Florida. Littlejohn claims that, when her child was a preteen, they expressed a transmasculine identity, and that now, as an older teen (still not a legal adult), they identify as a girl again.

The Telegraph interviewed Littlejohn when she was speaking outside the Supreme Court last week during oral arguments for U.S. v. Skrmetti, a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) screenshot, with snippet of paragraph: …gathered outside the court for a ‘Do No Harm’ rally. AMAC CEO Rebecca Weber joined a number of other high-profile speakers, including Daily Wire host Matt Walsh and parental rights activist January Littlejohn, in delivering an impassioned speech that received millions of views on social media.
Association of Mature American Citizens news release, December 6

She shared the platform with Matt Walsh, who said that the campaign against gender-affirming care for minors was “just the beginning” and that the real goal was to ensure that “trans ideology is entirely erased from the earth.” The same signs for “Let’s help, not harm” were visible behind both Littlejohn and Walsh.

How the Telegraph tells Littlejohn’s story

The headline makes two claims attributed to Littlejohn: that her 13-year-old child’s teachers “convinced” them they were trans “and didn’t tell” Littlejohn as the parent. The lede makes a third claim: Littlejohn was “forced” to take her child out of school.

She complains that teachers were “cheer[ing the child] on and celebrat[ing] this new identity” and accused her of “harming” her child by not affirming their identity. From Littlejohn’s perspective, her child was unhappy, and she and her husband attempted “to stop [the child] from making this irreversible decision.” Littlejohn believes it was the “false identity” that was contributing to the unhappiness.

Tucker Lieberman
Tucker Lieberman

Written by Tucker Lieberman

Cult classic. Author of the novel "Most Famous Short Film of All Time." Editor for Prism & Pen and Identity Current. tuckerlieberman.com

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