This story might have made some viewers angry, but it also might have saved some lives.
I’m transgender and know first-hand the suffering that goes along with being unable to express or be who you really are until well into adulthood.
Law & Order Season 22 Episode 19 did an excellent job showing various viewpoints surrounding this issue, but ultimately, Mrs. Myers’ testimony drove the point home. And that is something that’s badly needed right now.
The series gave more conservative viewpoints on this issue a fair hearing. While one of those voices was a parent who believed violence was the answer to his child’s desire to transition, most of these people were not violent.
Cosgrove and Price represented people who had legitimate concerns about the process. I think they are misguided but certainly not evil. And Myers had the right to question whether this treatment was appropriate for his child — but not to bash the doctor’s head in and call it self-defense when it wasn’t.
Kristen Bartell was one of the more interesting characters. I predicted that her husband was treating Taylor for gender dysphoria as soon as Taylor showed up on the scene, but I didn’t anticipate her response.
Cop: No sign of forced entry, and there are cameras covering the front and rear.
Shaw: Okay. Let’s check the footage.
Cop: I talked to the Congresswoman. Her office is sending it right over.
Shaw: Congresswoman?
Cop: His wife is Congresswoman Kristin Bartell of the 3rd Congressional District.
Cosgrove: She loves to be the center of attention. But I’m sure this is not the kind of attention she wants.
Bartell began the hour by trying to put off supporting an anti-trans group yet used anti-trans rhetoric to gain votes. So I assumed she didn’t know her husband was treating a transgender child.
However, Mrs. Bartell was more pro-trans than she admitted publicly. She justified it by saying that if she weren’t in that office, someone who denied that trans people exist would be, but that argument doesn’t work.
Within the LGBT community, some people are fiscally conservative or agree with conservative politics in many ways but can’t justify voting for politicians that seek to actively harm their community. Similarly, those who have transgender people in their family or support LGBTQ rights generally may vote for people whose policies they abhor otherwise.
Instead of trying to court anti-trans votes, Bartell could still win by standing up for LGBT rights and reaching out specifically to pro-LGBT fiscal conservatives. Those people might be happy to vote for someone who shares their other values and is willing to risk ostracization by standing up for LGBTQ rights.
Mrs. Bartell might have thought she was doing something to help by stopping more extreme anti-trans voices from gaining power. Still, she was amplifying that rhetoric to get into office, which was harmful to transgender people no matter what she believed or advocated for.
The tendency to call this a political rather than a mental health issue is also disturbing.
People may disagree on whether gender-affirming care is the best way to help transgender children, but whether a doctor should be allowed to give a child life-saving care is not a political issue. (In real life, many proposed laws seek to ban parents from being able to consent to such care, making the issue at the center of this case irrelevant.)
Price represented many people who support transgender rights but don’t think children can know they are transgender.
Leaving aside the fact that puberty blockers’ effects are reversible, this argument has always struck me as strange.
The majority of children identify as their birth gender, and no one ever worries that Johnny can’t possibly know that he’s a boy and may come to the conclusion that he’s really a girl when he’s older. So if cisgender children can know for sure what their gender identity is, why can’t transgender children?
I liked the analogy Maroun used in response — it’s one I’ve used myself to help people understand how I’ve felt for most of my life.
The final complication of the defense wanting to call Taylor didn’t make much sense. How could Taylor help the defense?
The defense attorney argued that Taylor was a confused child forced to identify as a girl, but would the judge have allowed her to put Taylor’s gender identity on trial?
I also dislike the trope of the defense calling a shocking witness that the ADA’s office has to scramble to deal with.
In reality, all witness lists have to be submitted in advance so that the other side has time to prepare, but TV lawyers are always getting thrown off by unexpected witnesses being called.
It has always felt like cheap, contrived drama, especially when there’s no apparent reason for opposing counsel to call this witness.
I’m also not sure why the only options were to put Taylor on the stand immediately or plead this out. Couldn’t they ask to appoint a lawyer to protect Taylor’s interests as they do in custody cases?
I wasn’t sure about McCoy’s idea of declaring Taylor incompetent. It came too close to the myth that being transgender is a mental illness and that trans people should not be allowed to transition because it’s “giving in to the delusion.”
On the other hand, if Taylor’s mother thought Taylor was too fragile to testify, she had the right to ask for a psychiatric evaluation. A psychiatric expert might also be able to testify about what it was doing to Taylor not to be allowed to transition.
What did you think, Law & Order fanatics?
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Jack Ori is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. His debut young adult novel, Reinventing Hannah, is available on Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.