It's Tuesday, February 10, 2026. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is The Briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. Okay, a couple of quick observations. Sometimes things happen all together, and that's just the way things happen sometimes. And it's because of interconnection. Sometimes it's just random development. Sometimes, no, this really is a cluster event. And right now on the trans issue, we have a cluster event or set of events to talk about. The other observation is that when something like this is happening here in the United States, it is almost assuredly happening somewhere else as well. And sometimes the general truth is that what happens in the United States is most important than what happens elsewhere. In other words, it affects other nations, but it works the other way too. And American Christians need to understand that sometimes things that take place in other nations, even in other courts and other political systems can eventually find their way here, if in argument, if not necessarily quite yet in policy. All right. I want to talk about that because of something that's going on in Brazil. Headline coming out of Brazil, the Wall Street Journal, Brazil criminalizes transgender dissent. So one of the things we have to be aware of is the fact that when you have a giant moral argument, which is, as Christians understand, it's even more basic than moral because we're talking about an ontological argument. It's an argument about reality. Reality is in male and female, boy and girl. When you get down to the debate on that kind issue, you see a society begin to get polarized almost immediately. Now, that's not to say that everyone is connected at one of the poles. It is to say that the polarities define the issue. So let's just put it bluntly. Right now, you have an LGBTQ plus activist community, and that's one pole. That's one magnetic force. The other is historic biblical Christianity and common grace, creation, order, common sense that shows up with the vast majority of people saying we're not going along with that. Even if you have lower resistance on the part of a secular culture to L and G and B, the T, it's still a major stumbling block. Now, if you think about iron filings, put two magnets. And if you put two magnets, one on the left and one on the right, then you're going to have iron filings move that way. But if you have enough of them, there can be a lot in the middle. And the question is, what happens to those in the middle? Which way do they eventually go? Because the arguments eventually are so clear that there really is nothing in the middle in terms of an argument. It's either for or against. And that's where we are right now on the transgender issue. The second thing to note is that when the left pushes this kind of revolution through the law, they not only seek to ensure permission, they also want to ensure coercion. That's what we have to see. It is that when you have the left to make this kind of move, they say, we're just arguing for permission. The next thing you know, after permission, they're arguing for coercion. What do I mean by that? I mean, they're trying to say originally, all we want to do is to make sure that transgender persons, as they identify them, have the so-called right and access to whatever treatments they demand. Where it ends up is not just there, however, it is that anyone who disagrees with this now has to be silent. And that's exactly what we see in the background to this law in Brazil. As reporter Mary Anastasia O'Grady of the Wall Street Journal tells us, a woman who's a feminist in Brazil is a feminist who doesn't believe that a male can be a female. And she's in trouble right now because she posted on social media remarks made by a professor emeritus at Sydney University. And that professor said, quote, a person who identifies as transgender retains their birth DNA. No surgery, synthetic hormones or change of clothes will alter this fact. Now, in this case, you also had the claim that historic feminism, as in Simone de Beauvoir, supports such a claim. The Wall Street Journal then tells us, quote, for posting these opinions, this woman has been charged by federal prosecutors with a crime of transphobia. So let me repeat that the crime of transphobia. Her trial is scheduled for this week. If found guilty, she could be fined and imprisoned for up to five years. Even if acquitted, she will face significant legal bills to defend her speech. But then the journal reports, quote, the case shows how far Brazil has fallen from the modern liberal democracy it aspired to become when it emerged in dictatorship in 1985. courts are no longer constrained by the constitution and the contrarian who questions the judiciary's version of the truth increasingly risks imprisonment, end quote. Okay. So I think we all understand autocracy in terms of a single individual gaining control or autocracy as a small group of people gaining control. I think most people think this is likely to come from an executive branch or from the military, perhaps from the legislative branch. But in Brazil, it's coming from the judicial branch. It is judges who are establishing a claim that they basically can determine legislation. They can order prosecutions. They can transform society according to their own dictates, free from the Constitution. Again, the journal has it right when we are told, quote, courts are no longer constrained by the Constitution. OK, that is one of the worst case scenarios for constitutional government. The Constitution is to be the ruling authority. Therefore, judges are to rule according to the Constitution. If judges and courts are freed from the obligation of accountability to the actual text of the Constitution, what you have is a revolution taking place. Honestly, something like that was taking place in the United States in the period from the late 1950s until the correction that came mostly during the 1980s. You had court cases handed down by the Supreme Court, and in particular, rulings on school prayer and rulings on sexuality, rulings on abortion in particular, that frankly had no constitutional basis whatsoever. There was nothing in the Constitution about such things. And even then we were talking in the United States about what was called the judicial usurpation of politics that is to say judges or courts usurping the political process In the United States now that is less a danger but don ever think it is a danger we don have to worry about. Because the fact is that the left, which was gaining so much in the, especially the 1960s and the 1970s, the left is determined to regain control of the courts. And this is exactly now tied to presidential elections. You elect a democratic president, he's going to appoint liberal justices and judges. You elect a Republican president, he's going to appoint conservative, and that means textualist or originalist or strict constructionist conservative judges, which means they are accountable to the text. But in Brazil, the big point is that the judges, the courts are really not accountable to the Constitution at all. And thus, they're pushing through their own agendas and their own revolutions. And the LGBTQ revolution is the latest to become the orthodoxy of these judges. And as I said, it begins with a demand for acceptance, and then it becomes a demand for coercion. So now you have these courts going against a woman who is a feminist, much like others who were referred to as exclusionary feminists, trans-exclusionary feminists. In other words, they believe that feminism is limited to, here's the radical thought, females, okay? Well, now you're looking at a criminal prosecution. And as the journal rightly says, even if for some reason, perhaps under public attention, you have this court back off on this case, the fact is this woman is already obligated to spend a fortune in legal bills. And her reputation has already been really trashed by this process. Okay, it's going to be very interesting to see where this goes. I also want to go back to the crime, the crime of transphobia. Okay, now that's really a mess. And the Wall Street Journal puts that in scare quotes, meaning that is a term of art. In other words, it's a specific term to which they're pointing. And I think we understand what's going on there. And that is that what you had in terms of the sexual revolution is a good number of people who claimed a therapeutic agenda. And that is to say, we have psychiatric and psychological reasons for the wellness of people. We need to move in this direction. And so you had a world turned upside down. Now, the person who, say, misperceives gender identity, that's not the diagnosis. The diagnosis now is that if you are against that, you see a problem with that, you're committed to creation order rather than the new gender ideologies, then you are actually described as phobic. You're having a phobic reaction to persons such as transsexuals or homophobia was a phobic reaction to homosexuality. Let's be clear as Christians, it's not based in a phobia. It's based in biblical authority. It's based in a clear, objective, moral declaration. But you do see how this works in society because you had campuses, you had media people, Hollywood types, politicians all talking about the problem of homophobia, now transphobia. The problem isn't phobia. The problem is, well, biology, especially when it comes to the transgender revolution. I think it's going to be interesting to see where this goes. I think even this woman's attorneys aren't making the strongest case. According to the journal, one of the arguments they're making is that their client statements, quote, are opinions expressed in an ongoing philosophical and scientific debate and don't amount to hate speech, incitement to discrimination or violence, end quote. But what we see there is if all this is is just entering into a debate that's not yet settled, that means that one day, presumably, it will be settled, and that could just create a whole new problem. In other words, if it's settled by the revolutionaries on their terms, you know, what this woman is now facing will be faced by any gospel preacher in the United States of America, faced by any employer or anyone, anyone just as a private citizen, as this woman who posts, dares to post on social media or to declare in public they're not going along with the LGBTQ plus delusion. And I'm afraid there'd be many people look at this and say, well, that's Brazil. That's Brazil. But we dare not say that what happens in Brazil in this kind of case will stay in Brazil. Meanwhile, we need to come to a court case here in the United States. And this is really big because this is the first time you have a so-called detransitioner win in a case. In this case, you're talking about a young woman who had sexual confusion, gender confusion, went to medical authorities. And when she was 16 years old, there was a double mastectomy. And supposedly in response to the fact she had declared herself to be not female, but male. And now you have this woman who is saying that rather quickly, she regretted having done this and felt like this. She and her mother had basically been pushed into this by encouraging medical authorities. And here you had a jury case in which it was found that indeed this young woman had a cause and she was awarded $2 million. It's not absolutely clear exactly what kind of precedent this sets in the law, but it is clear that this is a huge precedent in the culture. And so a clear signal sent. I want to tell you, I've been watching this for days and I wanted to talk about it at just the right time. I didn't talk about it immediately when it happened because I thought another big part of the story is how it is covered in the media. And those are sometimes two very different things, both of them very revealing. But okay, in the first case, you have the court decision. The court's decision is not as sweeping as I think it should have been. The award is not as large in this situation as I thought it should have been. On the other hand, it is a precedent in the courts. And in this case, we're talking about something that really is important. It's also interesting to note that this jury is in New York state. So that can't be incidental. In other words, it should amplify our understanding of this to know that even in a state like New York, you had a court and a jury that ruled in this direction. Okay, here's the second thing. Here's the second thing to think about here, the press coverage. Number one, when this first happened, you had to be really looking at a very conservative news site to know that anything had happened I was waiting to see when in the world is there going to be any mainstream media attention to this Now, it did come. And so I'll just point again to the New York Times as perhaps the most clear indication of that mainstream media world. And they ran a big story headline, woman wins a lawsuit over gender surgery as a minor is put on page A20. Okay. So that's 20 pages in from the first page, but here it is. And it covers the better part of the top half of a full page of the paper. And, but it's, it's in the print edition dated February 5, 2028. Okay. So let's just say several days had passed before the New York times ran that article. It had run in a lot of other media sources, a lot of other media sources, particularly on the conservative side before the New York Times ran the article. Okay, so that was February the 5th, and that was the New York Times. I think it's just important in putting the context to understand that was February the 5th. The next day, February the 6th, you can do the math. The very next day on page A22, so it was A20, the court decision. Now, the next day on A22, so 22 pages in from the front page, here's the headline, quote, doctor's group endorses restrictions on gender related surgery for minors. In this case, it is a huge story. It is the fact that the American Society of Plastic Surgeons has now taken an official position saying that gender related surgeries and such treatments should be delayed surgeries in particular until age 19, which is to say, again, you could put this so many different ways. In other words, if you are 18 or younger, you don't have access to these treatments according to the standards of care approved by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. Okay. This is the kind of thing that has already happened in some other places, the United Kingdom, Britain in particular. You had the report that was released known as the Cass Report, and you also had a report on a gender clinic known as Tavistock. Both of them were devastating. Both of them came to the conclusion that there is no sufficient evidence that these so-called treatments, and in particular, the surgeries are sufficiently helpful to overcome concerns about potential harms. Okay. That's honest. At least you can say that, you know, they're trying not to say something's right or wrong. You understand that they're trying their best not to say this is right or this is wrong. They're simply saying there is not enough evidence to believe that more good than harm is done in this case, at least up to age 18. In other words, they're not saying anything about 19 and above, and presumably they're far more positive about that. The point here is that this is one of the very first medical associations like this to come out with this kind of statement. It's also interesting that you have people making statements such as the fact that this is not really that big a deal. National Public Radio ran a statement by Kellen Baker, identified as a health researcher at an LGBTQ think tank called the Movement Advancement Project. And this person told NPR, quote, that the ASPS position actually aligns with the current standard of care for transgender youth. This individual said, quote, there's really nothing new here. The standard of care already does not recommend surgeries for minors as part of the routine approach to this care. Okay, a couple of things there. I don't believe for a minute that that organization or any other similar LGBTQ organization has not been contending for these surgeries to be available to children and young people because we've already seen this happen. The other thing is when you have institutions, including medical centers, that say they're going to stop doing this, at the very least that tells you you can't stop doing something unless you're doing it. And the case of the young woman who just won the court decision, that's another indication of the fact this is happening. And thus, this statement by the American Society of Plastic Surgeons does matter. Just a day later, a statement of some clarification came from the American Medical Association that, as you know, is an even larger group of medical doctors saying that the best standard of care was to delay these treatments and in particular surgeries until a later time. It's just really interesting to see what's going on right now. And I also want to point out that I think one of the most morally clarifying developments that's going to come out of this there's going to be a wave of these so-called detransitioner suits. And that's one of the ways you get people's attention. It's one of the ways social ridiculousness is at least called to account. And in this case, with a horrible personal toll, you're talking about a young woman who, after all, just won a lawsuit because medical authorities told this young woman and her mother that the best standard of care was a double mastectomy for a teenage girl, which she now regrets. And just imagine that regret and the weight of that regret. That underlines the gravity of what's going to be involved when you confuse or deny creation order. Okay, I told you these things are coming together in a cluster. And you'll notice those two medical societies or associations, they spoke within 24 hours. Those two big news stories broke in one major newspaper separated by only 24 hours. That's the way this is happening. And separated only by about 24 hours is another development. And here's another headline for you. California sues a children's hospital system to maintain transgender care. So now you have Rob Bonta, who is the attorney general of California, bringing legal action and threat, but actual true action against a medical center when the medical center announced in the light of these developments, it is putting a pause on transgender treatments for children and teenagers. And now you have the Attorney General of California acting on behalf of the people of California, threatening this hospital system, this medical center with direct action if it does not restart those programs. And when you say a lot of these things aren't happening, let's make clear that we're not just talking about surgery here. We're also talking in this case about hormone therapies and more comprehensive care, but all of it serving the cause of the transgender revolution. It is really interesting to see that the Attorney General of California says that because of legal agreements the Medical Center which is in this case Children Hospital of Los Angeles has to continue a program that had been known as the Center for Transgender Youth and Development It was closed in July The Times tells us, quote, the clinic was among the nation's oldest and most prestigious clinics focused on transgender young people and parents of trans children across the state said the closure was a harbinger of what could come, end quote. Now, let me just point out that in the worldview conflict here, you can't get more basic than this. You can't get more basic than this because you're not just talking about, say, a taxation proposal. You're not just talking about zoning laws. You're talking about whether or not a medical center, a children's hospital, is to be legally obligated to participate in what, well, medical authorities are saying should not happen. Or in the larger context in which you have the Trump administration, I think very helpfully through the levers of federal spending, making very clear to these medical centers and hospitals You can't have it both ways. You can either have the funding or you can continue these programs. And by the way, when you face that kind of choice, it's amazing how many people go with the money. And of course, when you have these big medical centers and hospitals, extremely costly, you can understand there's a big incentive there for them to go with the money. It also points out, by the way, let me just say the importance of elections because had Kamala Harris been elected president of the United States in 2024, you wouldn't be talking about any of these headlines. As a matter of fact, you might be talking about headlines in which you have coercion. Again, we know this because just look at Brazil. This is the way this works. Just look at the leftist energy in America's college and university campuses and in professional associations. That's just the way it works. All right. Well, we're talking about these things and other cluster events. This one is dated February 8th. So just a couple of days after those other developments. In this case, it is USA Today and the Des Moines Register reporting that the state of Iowa, quote, no longer counts non-binary students. All right. So this is due to legislation that has been adopted. And the Iowa Department of Education is now no longer counting non-binary students in terms of a gender identity. Now, as you can imagine, the numbers are relatively low, but you can also imagine that what's been reported at least is that those numbers were growing. Okay. So the state of Iowa, because of this legislation is now going to report the number of males and females, the number of boys and girls in the school system. It isn't going to have another category. Okay. One of the reasons for that, by the way, is that it's just right. In other words, we should be talking about boys and girls and we should know what we're talking about. There's another aspect here, and that is that in terms of such things as applications for funding, in terms of all kinds of record keeping, it becomes nearly impossible to know what in the world you're dealing with when you have this third category, which is amorphous. And frankly, you know, from year to year, you could look like you don't know who anyone is, which actually is a part of the agenda long term of the revolutionaries. And you see that, by the way, and some of the most radical people now saying, you know, when a baby's born, you need not to say it's a boy or a girl. You need to say it looks like a boy or it looks like a girl. In one case, the language is that it's biologically presenting as a boy, biologically presenting as a girl. We'll find out, you know, the child will tell us later whether it's a boy or a girl. Thankfully, at least the vast majority of parents, the vast majority of parents know that is toxic nonsense. Thankfully, the vast majority of medical centers thus far have not joined in this. But there's another very interesting development, and this one's reported in the free press. And it is the fact that you have people, faculty in medical schools who are now in a situation in which they are intimidated by students if they use expressions such as pregnant woman. Emily Yoffe, who is writing for the Free Press, talks about one medical school professor who had to come before the class and beg forgiveness for using the expression pregnant women. The next line in the story, quote, another doctor received so many online complaints from students in real time while she was lecturing that when the class finished, she burst into tears, her misdeed saying male and female, end quote. Some of this was reported all the way back in 2021 by Katie Herzog in a report also published at the Free Press, then the common sense known as Med Schools Are Now Denying Biological Sex. And I have heard the same thing directly from medical students who told me that the use of terms like male and female in the context of medical school, which is supposed to be of all things based in anatomy and physiology and biology and claims to be both a profession and a science. It is now a matter of discipline in some cases, if you use terms like male and female. All right, we'll be following these things with you. We will hope to hear what that court in Brazil determines in the first case we talked about, and we'll be following these other things as well. Just a reminder, and I want to speak particularly here to pastors. Pastors, your people are wondering about so much of this, and they're vulnerable to all kinds of arguments. I hope you're really helping them to discern and to know on the basis of biblical truth how to know and recognize that truth and to defend it, how to defend their own children in this context. Parents, I hope you're paying attention to this. You need to know that as much as you think, in some cases, you have sheltered your children from some of this conversation, the conversation is coming for your kids, and I hope you're really preparing them for that. it is also interesting to note that it's constantly the truth that we are reminded by young children that they are listening and they are hearing. And at least in part these days, what it means when we are instructed to raise our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord, that means going all the way back to the first chapter of the Bible and, for crying out loud, getting that right. Thanks for listening to The Briefing. For more information, go to my website at albertmohler.com. You can follow me on X or on Twitter by going to x.com forward slash albertmohler. For information on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu. For information on Boyce College, just go to boycecollege.com. I'll meet you again tomorrow for the briefing.
