A few weeks after last summer’s Dobbs decision, Massachusetts quietly passed a law to protect abortionists from lawsuits and criminal charges if they perform abortions on women from out of state. 

Also tacked onto this law, using the broad sweeping language of “reproductive health care,” was a provision to protect Massachusetts doctors who prescribe hormones or perform surgeries on people with gender dysphoria. 

From the beginning, the transgender movement has hitched onto other movements. In this case, a movement that denies “women” co-opts a self-styled “women’s rights” issue. 

What abortion and so-called “gender medicine” do have in common is committing physical harm. They are both what philosopher Philip Rieff called “deathworks.” Because the transgender movement lacks any positive good to pursue, it only survives by hijacking other cultural movements that claim to “protect the oppressed.” However, when in conflict with these movements, for example, the “L’s” in the acronym, the “T’s” quickly become the oppressors. A movement can never be too careful about its bedfellows.