At the heart of the political and philosophical debates over transgender issues is a battle of language. In the age of what has been dubbed “gender ideology,” the words “man,” “woman,” “boy,” and “girl” have taken on new import.[1] Courts recognize that pronouns “convey a powerful message implicating a sensitive topic of public concern.”[2]
Activist groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Lambda Legal know this well. They understand the power of language to shape how people think. For years, they have taught the public on how to speak about sex and gender. They advance “transgender rights” directly through impact litigation, but they also advance their cause indirectly by training judges to use gender-identity-based pronouns, nouns, and other trans-centered language.[3] This strategy is effective. Trans language is now mainstream to such an extent that in 2020 it was a national news story when a judge declined to use a litigant’s requested pronouns.[4]
In less than a decade, activists have craftily shaped the terms of the debate. Couching language guides as cultural competency, they openly indoctrinate judges in trans theory. They present new, value-laden terms as merely descriptive. They frame compelled speech as a matter of civility, convincing courts that gender-identity-based language is the only permissible option. But when it comes to the merits of their cases, they insist that this language conveys substantive ideas, stating facts about the reality of sex and gender.
When hearing cases touching on trans issues, courts must decide what language to use. Words convey meaning, and the words of judicial opinions become law. They also form the cultural narrative. “The power of language to shape our perceptions of other people is immense.”[5] Even when their legal arguments fail, activists can claim a win for the movement when judges adopt trans terminology in framing the case.
Trans-Centered Language
As recently as 2019, U.S. Supreme Court justices were fumbling to describe a man who began to publicly identify as a woman in terms acceptable to trans activists. In the Harris Funeral Homes case, the ACLU began oral argument by asserting that “Aimee Stephens is a transgender woman.”[6] The Chief Justice, however, did not use this terminology. He asked about “a transgender man transitioning to woman,” using the pronoun “he,” then “he or she.”[7] That Stephens should be understood as a “transgender woman” rather than a “transgender man” was not intuitive. Without training, a person does not know that trans activists insist that a man who identifies as a woman is a “transgender woman.” This choice of terminology reflects a value judgment. It prioritizes a person’s self-perceived gender identity over their sex. Ultimately, the Court adopted trans pronouns and honorifics in its opinion, referring to “Ms. Stephens” and “she.”[8] This language indicates that most fundamentally, Stephens was a woman, though incidentally a transgender one.
While “a court may have the most benign motives in honoring a party’s request to be addressed with pronouns matching ‘his deeply felt, inherent sense of [his] gender,’” doing so may “unintentionally convey its tacit approval of the litigant’s underlying legal position.”
Today, trans-centered language is the default, even among judges who don’t buy the legal arguments in the underlying case. In United States v. Skrmetti, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s law prohibiting healthcare providers from administering puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones to children with gender dysphoria. Still, the majority opinion uses nouns and pronouns that prioritize the trans theory of gender identity.[9] It uses male pronouns to refer to both “a boy whose biological sex is male” and “a transgender boy (whose biological sex is female).”[10] A footnote explains: “We use ‘transgender boy’ to refer to an individual whose biological sex is female but who identifies as male.”[11] While the ACLU’s legal arguments did not prevail in the case, their anthropology arguably did.[12]
According to the ACLU, pronouns are “not merely a preference but a statement of fact.”[13] Using gender-identity-based pronouns “acknowledges the existence of transgender people.”[14]
The “statement of fact” expressed by using a person’s self-selected pronouns is that some people are “transgender;” that is, they have a “gender identity [] different from the sex assigned to them at birth.”[15]
To not acknowledge the stated pronouns of someone who identifies as transgender, the ACLU teaches, is to “assert[] a power to deny their identity and effectively erase them from our society.”[16]
In litigation about gender transition drugs and procedures, Lambda has asked courts to “instruct all participants in th[e] case, including litigants, witnesses, and lawyers, to use the pronouns and honorifics that conform with a person’s identity when referring to that person.”[17] In its view, “Courtesy and respect require the use of language that conforms with a transgender person’s gender identity.”[18] Even in cases where counsel for the other side has agreed to use the trans-identifying parties’ chosen pronouns, Lambda and the ACLU have sought orders to ensure that expert witnesses don’t use “incorrect pronouns for transgender litigants.”[19] They argue that the court can use, and require others to use, trans-centered terms without influencing the legal or factual findings on the merits of the case.[20] Yet, in the same motion, they complain that the expert witnesses whose language they want to police have expressed opinions that they disagree with. For example, an expert may testify that “social affirmation”—which involves using someone’s self-selected pronouns to affirm their gender identity—“is wrong.”[21] The appropriateness of using trans pronouns goes to the heart of the merits of such cases, which are about how best to care for those with gender dysphoria.
Shaping the Narrative of a Case
The debate over language also matters in litigation about sex discrimination. In a case that began six years ago but is still ongoing, a group of female athletes are challenging a policy that allowed males who identify as females to compete in girls’ high school track events.[22] They claim that the policy, which was “regularly resulting in boys displacing girls in competitive track events,” denies girls equal athletic opportunities in violation of Title IX.[23]
Before the case reached the district court, the ACLU published a piece about one of the male athletes who had competed in girls’ track competitions under the new policy.[24] Its framing of the case was exactly the opposite of the girls’. It decried the “stereotypes regarding athleticism, biology, and gender … being directed at transgender girls, who are frequently told outright that they are not girls.”[25] It asserted that “there is no research supporting the claim that they maintain a competitive advantage” in sports.[26]
According to the ACLU, it was the use of “misinformation about biology and gender … to bar transgender girls from sports” that was sex discrimination under Title IX.[27]
When the girls filed their case in court, the ACLU described the case as trying to “undermine Title IX by claiming it doesn’t apply to a subset of girls.”[28] It called out “the language of the complaint, which deliberately misgenders transgender youth and demands that high school athletics be organized by chromosomes, [a]s an assault on the basic dignity and humanity of transgender people.”[29] The ACLU included statements from two trans-identifying athletes, who each declared: “I am a girl.”[30] The ACLU moved to intervene in the case, describing the two athletes as “girls who are transgender, which means that they were assigned a male sex at birth but are young women.”[31] The ACLU explained that just like “non-transgender girls,” the athletes “have a female gender identity and live their lives as girls.”[32]
The district court’s understanding of the case reflected the ACLU’s narrative. The court sua sponte ordered that the girls’ counsel “refer to [proposed intervenors] as ‘transgender females’ rather than as ‘males.’”[33] The court opined that this terminology “is consistent with science, common practice and perhaps human decency.”[34]
It explained that referring to them as males “is not accurate” and “needlessly provocative.”[35]
As the case continued, the court adopted the ACLU’s terminology as its own, describing the plaintiffs as “non-transgender girls.”[36]
While the judge in that case seemed to agree with the ACLU’s metaphysical assertions, not everyone does. Most U.S. adults and teens “say that whether someone is a man or a woman is determined by the sex they were assigned at birth.”[37] Only one-third of adults (and 30% of teens) “say gender and sex can differ.”[38] But from the point of view of some activists, this shows a lack of understanding that should be remedied by education.
Educating Children and Judges
For at least a decade, Lambda Legal has trained judges on “LGBT cultural competency.”[39] This includes “educating judges … on how to address individuals with correct names and pronouns, as well as how to question, examine, and interrupt some of their biases about gender and sexuality.”[40]
If interrupting biases about gender sounds familiar, that’s because it recently came up at the Supreme Court. In Mahmoud v. Taylor, a case about parents’ right to opt-out their children from certain LGBTQ+ books in public school, Justice Barrett asked the school’s attorney about the difference between mere exposure to ideas and instruction.[41]
She quoted guidance for teachers instructing them to “disrupt the student’s either/or thinking” about gender and sexuality.[42] The same guidance gives teachers “age-appropriate ways to respond to questions” about what “transgender” means:
When we’re born, people make a guess about our gender and label us boy or girl based on our body parts. Sometimes they’re right; sometimes they’re wrong. When someone’s transgender, they guess wrong. When someone’s cisgender, they guessed right.[43]
Justice Barrett noted that these instructions “seem to be more about influence … and shaping of ideas” than about teaching respect or civility toward those who identify as transgender.[44]
Like the instructions for elementary-school teachers in Mahmoud, Lambda’s training curriculum for judges teaches ideological concepts as normative.[45] It explains trans terminology, like “sex assigned at birth” and “cisgender,” and trans ideas such as “the primary determinant of sex is gender identity.”[46] It instructs that previously acceptable terms like “MTF,” which stands for “Male to Female,” are “no longer appropriate” because they “insinuate[] that a transgender person was a male who became a female, instead of a woman who was assigned the incorrect sex at birth.”[47] As with pronouns, this terminology presents statements of fact. Those facts are the same ones fundamentally at issue in Lambda’s impact litigation.[48]
The ACLU takes credit for lobbying the Michigan Supreme Court “to take action to educate judges” after a lower-court judge criticized a panel’s decision to use “they/them” pronouns for a criminal defendant.[49]
The ACLU urged the court “to invest in LGBTQ cultural competency training” and “officially adopt a style-guide standard for pronoun usage.”[50] A year later, the Michigan Supreme Court proposed such a rule.[51] ACLU attorneys testified in favor of the change, citing the bills about women’s sports and regulation of pediatric medical transition as evidence of “an unprecedented war on the transgender community.”[52] They succeeded. Michigan courts now require judges to use a person’s “designated salutation or personal pronouns, or other respectful means that are not inconsistent with the individual’s designated salutation or personal pronouns.”[53]
While there is a disclaimer that the new pronoun rule “in no way reflects a substantive determination by the Court,” the justices debated the merits in concurring and dissenting opinions.[54] Those who supported the rule argued that avoiding “the appearance of misgendering” is “objectively respectful” since “gender identity … is a part of [a person’s] individual identity.”[55]
In their view, the rule would “prevent judges from discriminating based on gender identity.”[56] The dissenting justices, on the other hand, saw the self-selected-pronoun issue as “a fluid political debate” that the courts should avoid getting into.[57] They worried that “taking stances in a political debate” would “encourage the view that the Court is a political institution.”[58]
The reasoning behind courts adopting pronoun policies was laid out explicitly by a federal judge in Oregon in an article titled “Pronouns and Privilege.”[59] He chronicled his journey from a pronoun skeptic to an agent of change. When he first noticed law school faculty listing their pronouns in email signatures, he thought it “seemed performative and unnecessary.”[60] The idea of doing so himself “felt both inauthentic” and “a bit too political for a judge.”[61] Looking back, he realizes that he was blinded by his “privilege compounded by the intersectional synergy of being a judge and a cisgender man.”[62] His “unconscious biases” kept him from understanding “the value, the weight, and the power of pronouns.”[63]
After he was converted to the importance of stating one’s pronouns, the judge began looking for ways to “create[] a space” where “people of diverse gender identities felt safe and welcomed.”[64] He added pronouns to his email signature and even updated his courtroom rules to “encourage[]” parties and counsel “to advise the Court of their pronouns.”[65] The rule also instructed that “parties and counsel … address each other … by those pronouns.”[66] Still, this “seemed too passive,” so he “committed to begin every” proceeding “with an introduction that invited” everyone “to introduce themselves and provide their pronouns.”[67] He now includes his pronouns in his signature on opinions and looks forward to the day when U.S. Supreme Court justices do as well.[68] This judge’s approach reflects Lambda’s training for judges, which begins with introductions where each person states their name and pronouns.[69]
The Oregon judge, like the Michigan Supreme Court justices supporting the rule change, sees his role as an agent of social change. He encourages: “Judges can lead the way—[they] need not be bystanders.”[70] And one of the Michigan justices, acknowledging that no other state court rules “expressly include such comprehensive protection for personal pronouns,” celebrated that “history is made by being the first.”[71]
Courtroom Pronoun Policies
Those judges are not the only ones adopting pronoun policies. In the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, five of the seven active district court judges have adopted a “courtroom decorum” policy requiring all parties to refer to all other persons using their “applicable pronouns.”[72]
The court recently amended its local rules to specify that attorneys may be disciplined for violating a judge’s practice standards.[73]
Attorneys and litigants in this court with cases involving trans issues are concerned. A group of female D-1 volleyball athletes who sued their athletic conference for requiring them to compete against a male who identifies as a female asked the judge assigned to their case to rescind the pronoun-decorum rule and recuse.[74] They felt that the court had “publicly prejudged the core question” in the case—“whether sex is immutable or changeable.”[75] The court denied the motion.[76] It dismissed the concern “that a judge’s mere use of preferred pronouns and accepted terminologies … indicates bias and prejudgment.”[77] It insisted that “no party should … confuse the Court’s show of respect and courtesy for bias and prejudgment.”[78]
The similarity to statements from the ACLU is striking: “Adopting a rule on pronoun usage would align with consensus in the scientific and medical community regarding transgender identity … and would ensure that persons who come before a court can do so with an expectation that they will be treated with courtesy and respect.”[79]
Choice of Language
As judges hear cases involving trans language, they must choose their words carefully. While a judge who opts for trans terminology may insist it is merely a matter of etiquette and not substance, that language slants the framing and record of the case. In considering whether a person has a right to use a women’s bathroom or play on a women’s sports team, the terminology used all but answers the question. A man cannot use a woman’s bathroom. But a woman, obviously, can. So using “she” and “trans woman,” even if the court explains its meaning, sets the narrative of the case.
In recent years, few judges have used sex-based language when gender-identity-based language is requested. What would have been unremarkable a decade ago caused a stir in 2020 when Judge Duncan, writing for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, used male pronouns to refer to a trans-identifying prisoner.[80] The prisoner, who was convicted as a male, had later come to present as a woman and moved to be addressed with female pronouns.[81] The court denied the motion, explaining that “no authority supports the proposition that [it] may require litigants, judges, court personnel, or anyone else to refer to gender-dysphoric litigants with pronouns matching their subjective gender identity.”[82]
The court noted that compelling “the use of particular pronouns” could “raise delicate questions about judicial impartiality.”[83] While “a court may have the most benign motives in honoring a party’s request to be addressed with pronouns matching ‘his deeply felt, inherent sense of [his] gender,’” doing so may “unintentionally convey its tacit approval of the litigant’s underlying legal position.”[84]
And the court warned that “ordering the use of a litigant’s preferred pronouns may well turn out to be more complex than at first it might appear,” since there is no principle limiting the options to “he,” “she,” or “they.”[85]
This decision sparked outrage.[86] The choice to use sex-based language—what some have described as pre-ideological language[87]—was now beyond the pale. In February 2023, the American Bar Association adopted an “LGBTQ+ inclusive language and pronouns” policy, opining that a judge’s “[f]ailure to refer to someone using their preferred pronouns manifests bias and prejudice” in violation of the judicial code of conduct.[88] In March 2023, Judge Duncan was harassed when he visited Stanford Law School.[89]
Even judges who cautiously avoid pronouns and contested language are criticized for erasing transgender people by not affirmatively using their requested terms.[90] Indeed, even the judge who proactively tries to keep up with the evolving etiquette surrounding trans language inevitably offends the people he’s trying to be sensitive to. The Oregon judge who pioneered preferred-pronoun guidelines was promptly called by an activist lawyer who informed him that, for some, “a pronoun is not a preference, but a statement of fact.”[91] If—as trans activists teach—pronouns, nouns, and honorifics convey deep meaning, and gender identity is a controversial issue of profound value and concern to the public,[92] courts should not allow one side to dictate the terms of the debate.
[1] See Exec. Order 14168, Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government, 90 Fed. Reg. 8615 (Jan. 20, 2025).
[2] Meriwether v. Hartop, 992 F.3d 492, 508 (6th Cir. 2021).
[3] See LambdaLegal.org, Issues, Transgender & Nonbinary Rights; ACLU.org, Issues, Transgender Rights.
[4] See, e.g., Tim Fitzsimons, Trump-Appointed Judge Dismisses Trans Defendant’s Chosen Pronouns, NBC News (Jan. 16, 2020).
[5] Gender Spectrum, Resources, The Language of Gender.
[6] Transcript of Oral Argument at 3, R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes, Inc. v. EEOC, No. 18–107 (2019).
[7] Ibid., 5.
[8] See Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644, 653 (2020) (“When she got the job, Ms. Stephens presented as a male.”).
[9] United States v. Skrmetti, No. 23-477, 605 U.S. ---, 2025 WL 1698785 (U.S. June 18, 2025).
[10] Ibid., *9.
[11] Ibid., *9 n.2.
[12] See Theresa Farnan and Mary Rice Hasson, “Skrmetti Is a Partial Victory for Common Sense,” First Things (June 19, 2025) (“The Court fails to tackle the underlying anthropological issue presented by ‘transgender’ claims, and it capitulates to gender ideology in its use of language…. Such language … signals acceptance of the transgender premise that feelings and beliefs determine reality.”).
[13] Letter from ACLU Michigan to Chief Justice Elizabeth T. Clement, Michigan Supreme Court 3 (Mar. 23, 2023).
[14] Ibid., 1.
[15] Ibid., 2.
[16] Ibid., 6.
[17] Plaintiffs’ Motion in Limine Regarding Pronoun Usage and Misgendering, Dekker v. Weida, No. 4:22-cv-00325 (N.D. Fla. Apr. 27, 2023) (filed by Lambda).
[18] Plaintiffs’ Motion in Limine
No. 3, Regarding Pronoun Usage and Misgendering 1, Kadel v. Folwell, No. 1:19-cv-00272 (M.D.N.C. June 10, 2022).
[19] See Motion in Dekker, supra note 17, at 2; Plaintiffs MIL Regarding Pronoun Usage and Misgendering, Noe v. Parson, No. 23AC-CC04530 (Cole County., Mo. Sept. 6, 2024) (filed by the ACLU).
[20] Motion in Dekker, supra note 17, at 7 (“Courts … have easily distinguished between: (1) a substantive ruling on the merits or a legal or factual finding on a litigant’s gender identity, and (2) the respect owed a litigant by using the litigant’s correct pronouns.”).
[21] Ibid., 2.
[22] See Complaint, Soule v. Conn. Ass’n of Schs., Inc, No. 3:20-cv-00201 (D. Conn. Feb. 12, 2020). Alliance Defending Freedom, where I work, represents plaintiffs in this case.
[23] Complaint submitted to the U.S. Department of Education
at 2 (June 17, 2019).
[24] Shayna Medley & Galen Sherwin, Banning Trans Girls from School Sports Is Neither Feminist nor Legal, ACLU.org (Mar. 12, 2019).
[25] Ibid.
[26] Ibid.
[27] Ibid.
[28] ACLU, Press Release, ACLU Responds to Lawsuit Attacking Transgender Student Athletes, ACLU.org (Feb. 12, 2020) (Statement from Chase Strangio, deputy director for Trans Justice with the ACLU LGBT & HIV Project).
[29] Ibid.
[30] ACLU, supra note 29 (Statement from Terry Miller; Statement from Andraya Yearwood).
[31] Ibid., 2.
[32] Ibid.
[33] Transcript of Apr. 16, 2020 Telephone Conference at 29, Ex. A, Plaintiffs’ Motion to Disqualify, Soule, No. 3:20-cv-00201 (D. Conn. May 8, 2020).
[34] Ibid.
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ruling and Order at 2, Soule, No. 3:20-cv-00201 (D. Conn. Apr. 25, 2021) (emphasis added).
[37] “U.S. Teens Are Less Likely Than Adults to Know a Trans Person, More Likely to Know Someone Who’s Nonbinary,” Pew Rsch. Ctr. (Jan. 24, 2025) (68% of teens; 65% of adults).
[38] Ibid.
[39] R. J. Thompson, 3 Reasons Lambda Legal’s Fair Courts Project Conducts Anti-Bias and Cultural Competency Trainings for the Courts, Legacy.LambdaLegal.org (Dec. 16, 2015).
[40] Ibid.
[41] Transcript of Oral Argument at 161–163, Mahmoud v. Taylor, No. 24–297 (2025).
[42] Ibid.,162.
[43] Ibid.
[44] Ibid.
[45] Lambda Legal, Moving Beyond Bias: A Training Curriculum Prepared by Lambda Legal’s Fair Courts Project for Judges, Attorneys and Other Legal Professionals 2, Legacy.LambdaLegal.org (Feb. 2, 2018) (“This curriculum was created to provide a model for educating judges … about sexual orientation, gender identity and the needs of LGBT people in the legal system.”).
[46] Ibid., 9, 14.
[47] Ibid., 10.
[48] See, e.g., LambdaLegal.org, Ray v. McCloud (2018 case “challenging Ohio’s refusal to correct the gender marker on birth certificates for transgender individuals”); Schlacter v. U.S. Dep’t of State (2025 case “on behalf of seven transgender U.S. citizens, including one who is nonbinary, challenging the Trump administration’s policy denying them U.S. passports with accurate sex designations”).
[49] ACLU Michigan, Pronouns in the Courts.
[50] Letter from the LGBTQA Section of the Michigan State Bar, ACLU of Michigan, et al. to Chief Justice Bridget McCormack, Michigan Supreme Court, and Chief Judge Elizabeth Gleicher, Michigan Court of Appeals (Jan. 28, 2022), at 7.
[51] Order, Proposed Amendment of Rule 1.109 of the Michigan Court Rules, ADM File No. No. 2022–03 (Jan. 18, 2023).
[52] Comment from ACLU of Michigan on Proposed Amendment of MCR 1.109 at 4 (Mar. 23, 2023).
[53] Order, Amendment of Rule 1.109 of the Michigan Court Rules, ADM File No. 2022–03 (Sept. 27, 2023).
[54] Ibid.
[55] Ibid., 2, 5 (Welch, J., concurring).
[56] Ibid., 5 (Bolden, J., concurring).
[57] Ibid., 10 (Zahra, J., dissenting).
[58] Ibid., 15 (Viviano, J., dissenting).
[59] Hon. Mustafa T. Kasubhai, Pronouns and Privilege, 32 Advance Sheet (Summer 2021). He wrote the article while a magistrate judge and is now a federal district court judge.
[60] Ibid., 16.
[61] Ibid.
[62] Ibid.
[63] Ibid.
[64] Ibid.
[65] Ibid.,17.
[66] Ibid.
[67] Ibid.
[68] Ibid.
[69] Lambda Legal, Moving Beyond Bias, supra note 47, at 5 (“It is important for participants to state their pronouns.”).
[70] Kasubhai, Pronouns and Privilege, supra note 61, at 16.
[71] Order, Amendment of Rule 1.109 of the Michigan Court Rules, at 9 (Bolden, J., concurring).
[72] U.S. District Court, District of Colorado, Uniform Civil Practice Standards 11 (Dec. 9, 2024).
[73] See U.S. District Court, District of Colorado, Local Rules Revisions Effective December 1, 2024, Redline/strikeout version, at 69 (amending Local Rule 7(b)(1)).
[74] Slusser v. Mountain W. Conf., No. 1:24-cv-03155, Doc. 73 (D. Colo. Feb. 18, 2025).
[75] Ibid.
[76] Slusser v. Mountain W. Conf., No. 1:24-cv-03155, 2025 WL 746919 (D. Colo. Feb. 24, 2025).
[77] Ibid., *4 (citation omitted).
[78] Ibid.
[79]
Comment from ACLU of Michigan on Proposed Amendment of MCR 1.109
at 4 (Mar. 23, 2023).
[80] United States v. Varner, 948 F.3d 250 (5th Cir. 2020).
[81] Ibid., 252.
[82] Ibid., 254–55.
[83] Ibid., 256.
[84] Ibid.
[85] Ibid., 256–58.
[86] See, e.g., Ian Millhiser, Trump Judge Lashes Out at a Transgender Litigant in a Surprisingly Cruel Opinion, Vox (Jan. 17, 2020); Diana Flynn, FILED: Fifth Circuit Must Reconsider Opinion that Misgenders Trans Litigant, Legacy.LamdaLegal.org (Mar. 23, 2020).
[87] See Michael Hanby, Transgender Theory and Post-Political Order, Humanum Review (May 25, 2025).
[88] American Bar Association & New York State Bar Association, Report to the House of Delegates, Resolution.
[89] See Ed Whelan, Crybullies at Stanford Law School Threaten Free Speech, Nat’l Rev. (Mar. 10, 2023); David Lat, The Full Audio Recording of Judge Kyle Duncan at Stanford Law, Original Jurisdiction (Mar. 15, 2023).
[90] See, e.g., Susan Etta Keller, Doing Things with the Language of Law and Gender, 24 Nev. L.J. 413, 460 (2024) (describing the Meriwether opinion’s “choice to not honor an individual’s preferred pronoun” as “render[ing] Jane Doe genderless” and “mak[ing] Doe a blank slate rather than an individual with an existing gender identity”).
[91] Kasubhai, Pronouns and Privilege, supra note 61, at 17.
[92] See Meriwether v. Hartop, 992 F.3d 492, 506 (6th Cir. 2021) (citing Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, 585 U.S. 878, 913–14 (2018)).
