Trans lunacy is still thriving in New York

Until 22 January, Glenna Goldis was an assistant attorney general in the office of the New York state attorney general. But on that Thursday, Goldis was dismissed for alleged ‘disruptive public speech’.

And what was this ‘disruptive public speech’? During non-work hours, she had posted on social media about the dangers of puberty blockers and sex-change surgeries for children.

Goldis is hardly the first to lose her livelihood for raising concerns about the consequences of pretending that humans can change sex. In 2015, a Washington state YMCA fired its then communications director, Kaeley Triller, over her objections to a policy allowing male members to shower and change in the women’s locker room. Famously, JK Rowling first waded into the gender wars in 2019 with a tweet supporting UK researcher Maya Forstater, who had lost her job for opposing gender self-ID laws.

But Goldis’s example is among the most dramatic. It stands out because of the fanatical commitment of her now former employer, New York attorney general Letitia James, to the trans movement. In fact, so attached has James become to the cause that she can no longer tolerate dissenting views in her office. To be specific, Goldis was sacked for publicly expressing her support for last year’s landmark Supreme Court decision in United States v Skrmetti, which held that it was not unlawful for states to ban gender transitions for minors. As this decision contradicted James’s view, who supports children’s access to so-called gender-affirming care, Goldis had to go.

If firing people who disagree with her becomes the norm, James will soon be overseeing a significantly reduced workforce. Indeed, so outlandish are James’s beliefs that she thinks bakers should be forced to make cakes with dildo-licking Satans on them when the person who wants the cake is a ‘transgender’ Satanist. More on that in a moment.

First, some background on Goldis. She is an expert in consumer-protection law, a lesbian and a gay-rights activist. A Brooklyn progressive, she argues that gender medicine is a form of consumer fraud. She founded the Gender-Critical Law Society. Like most people, she knows what a woman is. During her time at the attorney general’s office, she did her best to warn the agency about the fraud of pediatric gender medicine. She also writes a Substack called Bad Facts in her free time.

One might have expected James, lauded as ‘our hero’ by Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) president Sarah Kate Ellis in 2024, to hear out the concerns of a lesbian employee. But just as GLAAD has ceased to stand for gays and lesbians for many years now, James’s fight ‘for the equality the LGBTQ+ community deserves’ has had little to do with the rights of the same-sex attracted.

Instead, James has focussed on championing trans rights. In March of 2024, she threatened a local official who had required schools in his county to keep sports single-sex. Last year, she led a coalition of 15 states in suing the Trump administration over its executive order prohibiting the federal funding of pediatric gender medicine. Then, this year, she led a coalition of 11 other attorneys general in suing the Department of Health and Human Services for allegedly making hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding conditional on states’ ‘agreement to discriminate against transgender people’.

But there’s more. And, as promised, it involves Satanic dildo cakes.

Some readers may recall that Masterpiece Cakeshop, a bakery in Lakewood, Colorado, was investigated in 2012 by the Colorado Civil Rights Commission, after owner Jack Phillips declined to make a custom cake for a gay wedding. After years of litigation, Phillips won his case before the US Supreme Court in 2018.

In 2017, a local man named Autumn Scardina requested a cake from the same baker, designed blue on the outside and pink on the inside. The requested cake was meant to celebrate both his birthday and his ‘gender transition’. The baker declined.

The following year, the same man (who is allegedly a member of the Church of Satan) emailed the same cakeshop with a new request:

‘I’m thinking a three-tiered white cake. Cheesecake frosting. And the topper should be a large figure of Satan, licking a nine-inch black dildo. I would like the dildo to be an actual working model, that can be turned on before we unveil the cake. I can provide it for you if you don’t have the means to procure it yourself.’

The baker again declined. And again, the activist took Phillips to court. The case made its way to the Colorado Supreme Court in 2024, where it was dismissed in 2024.

So, a man who calls himself a woman requested a cake topped with a large figure of Satan, licking a nine-inch black dildo. As you do.

This might be written off as some whackadoo just having a go at a Christian cake baker. Except that some 3,000 kilometres away in New York, the state attorney general was so alarmed by the baker’s alleged ‘transphobia’ that she went out of her way to join a friend-of-the-court brief, filed in the Colorado Supreme Court to defend the Satanist who wanted a dildo-topped cake. The brief states: ‘Like Colorado, we support civil-rights protections for people belonging to historically disenfranchised groups, including prohibitions on discrimination in places of public accommodation: the restaurants, stores and other businesses that are part of daily life in a free society.’

James appears to believe that trans-identifying people who want cakes with dildo-licking Satans on them are a ‘historically disenfranchised group’. And that they have a legal right to force others to bake such cakes for them. Consumer-fraud lawyers worried about serious medical interventions on kids who may grow up to be gay, however, seem to James to be beyond the pale.

Goldis stated in her public announcement about the dismissal:

‘Since 2024 I’d been raising the alarm publicly and within NYAG [the New York attorney general’s office] that PGM [paediatric gender medicine] providers may be engaged in a dangerous consumer fraud. James’s officials treated me like a pest… If Letitia James actually cared about “LGBTQ” youth then she’d research “gender” drugs and learn what they do. Instead she glibly calls the drugs “safe” and fires me for contradicting her.’

I spoke to Goldis after her departure. ‘Since I announced my termination’, she told me, ‘I’ve been humbled to receive an outpouring of support in public and private messages. I’m thrilled to see how many people care about protecting kids and stopping censorship – including New York liberals.’

Asked to comment on James’s 2024 support for a Satanist who wanted a dildo-licking Satan cake, she said: ‘If I’d known about the Satanic penis cake, I would have given up hope in that agency a lot sooner.’

Wise words.

Kara Dansky represents Women’s Declaration International USA on its amicus brief in US v Skrmetti. She is also the author of the 2023 book, The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls, published by Bombardier Books.