Banned in Boston: Schools Censor Gender-Critical Views with Judges' Approval

A haughty ruling class is trying to contain widespread protest in a liberal stronghold

“We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, ‘may the Lord make it like that of New England.’ For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill.”

John Winthrop, A Model of Christian Charity (1630)

This past June, two fascinating cases about “anti-trans” messages at public schools were decided by the federal First Circuit Court of Appeals. The pious court – which is based in Boston and covers Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Puerto Rico – endorsed censorship both times.

It’s no coincidence that two edgy “anti-trans speech” cases bubbled up in neighboring Massachusetts counties. The oldest, most frigidly progressive region of the country is pulsing with grassroots gender-critical protest.

This post is about freedom-hating local officials who use LGBTQ policies to take away the rights of students, teachers, and parents; the federal judges who let them; and the cranky yankees who are fighting back.

Where Are We?

I grew up in Rhode Island and practiced law in Massachusetts for five years. My neighbors bickered about whether cats should be allowed outside, not who to vote for in presidential elections – because there was only one point of view on that. Recently I met up with a childhood friend who’s now a Harvard-trained lawyer in the area. She said she doesn’t have any Republican friends. She’s an affable person, not closed off to dissenters – there just aren’t any in her circles. None.

It’s not just that most of these people are Democrats. It’s that there’s only one type of Democrat in New England: the kind who believes in recycling. The most northeasterly crust of America lacks the convivial transactionalism of NYC; the religious liberals you meet in the South and Midwest; and the tree-eating anarcho-witches on surfboards that keep the west coast unpredictable (OK, I don’t really understand what goes on out there). Boston’s moral code flows pure and unadulterated straight from the Ford Foundation.

And it’s ground zero for transing kids. The Gender Management Service (GeMS) at Boston Children’s Hospital was the first of its kind in the US. It opened in 2007, but its endocrinologists started treating “patients with a … broad range of pubertal stages” in 1998. In 2000, a trans-identified boy sued his school in nearby Brockton, Mass. for the right to wear dresses.

Even knowing all this about my homeland, I was still struck by the monolith I encountered as I researched this post. Apparently everyone there with a modicum of institutional power is staunchly, angrily supporting the trans agenda, from brahmin judges on the waterfront to public school vice principals down by the shore. The lead attorneys representing gender dissidents have to be flown in from distant lands.

And yet there are so many gender dissidents in eastern New England – whose population comprises about 3% of the US – that they have mounted five of the country’s most interesting legal challenges to genderfied schooling. They’ve also sponsored public events. The suburbs and towns north of Boston are represented in Congress by Seth Moulton, the Democratic House member who recently broke ranks with his party to question the wisdom of letting males play girls’ sports. I’m guessing he thought his constituents would approve (even as his staff revolted).

The plaintiffs in today’s lawsuits feel familiar to me – obstreperous yet nonthreatening types who argue with each other in windy village squares. None of them raise religious freedom claims, as their anti-gender counterparts in other regions tend to do, or express a problem with gender nonconformity or gay people. They’re just sick of lordly school administrators dictating nonsense.

LM v. Town of Middleborough (First Circuit, June 2024)

Nichols Middle School sits in a “fringe rural setting” not far from Plymouth Rock in Middleborough, Massachusetts. 36% of Nichols students are proficient at reading; 41% at math. By 2023, school officials perceived a crisis among certain youth. As a federal district court would later recount:

“[Superintendent Carolyn] Lyons is aware of several Nichols students, including ‘members of the LGBTQ+ community,’ having attempted to commit suicide or having had suicidal ideations … [Acting principal Heather] Tucker has also worked closely with students who have been hospitalized for attempted suicide or suicidal ideation or who have self-harmed ‘because of their gender identity.’”

To tackle the crisis, Nichols faculty attended three “LGBTQ+” trainings between January 2022 and 2023, and “promote[d] messages commonly associated with ‘LGBTQ Pride.’”

In March 2023, a seventh grade boy named Liam wore a T-shirt to Nichols that read, “There are only two genders.” (He later explained that he equated the word “gender” with “sex.”) Tucker ordered him to either go home or change the shirt. Liam spoke up about the censorship at the next school board meeting:

“I have been told that my shirt was targeting a protected class. Who is this protected class? Are their feelings more important than my rights? I don’t complain when I see ‘pride flags’ and ‘diversity posters’ hung throughout the school. Do you know why? Because others have a right to their beliefs just as I do. Not one person, staff, or student told me that they were bothered by what I was wearing. Actually, just the opposite. Several kids told me that they supported my actions and that they wanted one too.”

By May 2023, Liam had lawyered up. Amid raging protests and counter-protests just off campus, he wore a shirt to school that read, “There are CENSORED genders.” When accosted by the authorities, he agreed to change his shirt.

Liam says he wore the harmful T-shirts to protest the school’s curriculum, which taught its already-subpar pupils that boy and girl are feelings and the number of gender identities is “unlimited.” Nichols does not dispute his characterization of its lessons.

Liam sued the district for violating his First Amendment right to free speech. The Alliance Defending Freedom and Massachusetts Families Institute represent him. ADF is a nonprofit law firm that, in its words, “advances the God-given right to live and speak the Truth.” Liam’s ADF lawyers are based in Virginia and Georgia.

The federal District of Massachusetts denied Liam’s motion for a preliminary injunction. He appealed the denial to the First Circuit.

Liam with family. Photo from ADF’s site.

Legal Precedents

“It can hardly be argued that either students or teachers shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate.”

Sound familiar? That’s the Supreme Court in Tinker v. Des Moines (1969). Citing the First Amendment of the Constitution, it upheld the right of public school students to wear armbands that signaled their opposition to America’s role in the Vietnam war.

As ADF emphasizes in its briefs, Vietnam was an incredibly fraught subject at the time of the protest. Many members of the community in Des Moines, Iowa knew young men who had died fighting there, and did not want to contemplate that their service had been futile or wrong. Nevertheless, the Court struck down the school policy:

“Any departure from absolute regimentation may cause trouble. Any variation from the majority's opinion may inspire fear. Any word spoken, in class, in the lunchroom, or on the campus, that deviates from the views of another person may start an argument or cause a disturbance. But our Constitution says we must take this risk; and our history says that it is this sort of hazardous freedom—this kind of openness—that is the basis of our national strength and of the independence and vigor of Americans who grow up and live in this relatively permissive, often disputatious, society.”

The Supreme Court has chipped away at Tinker over the years, but it nevertheless reaffirmed in 2021 that “America’s public schools are the nurseries of democracy” – meaning they should allow a fair amount of debate and cacophony.

Everyone agrees that Tinker applies to LM v. Town of Middleborough. But Middleborough seizes on a caveat in Tinker:

“[C]onduct by the student, in class or out of it, which for any reason—whether it stems from time, place, or type of behavior—materially disrupts classwork or involves substantial disorder or invasion of the rights of others is, of course, not immunized by the constitutional guarantee of freedom of speech.”

Is it an invasion of the rights of nonbinary students to politely inform them that their identity is made up? Does sharing this view materially disrupt classwork?

Norris

The First Circuit’s closest precedent might be the me-too era Norris (2020), in which a Maine girl posted a message on a school bathroom wall that one of her classmates – unnamed, but school officials understood it to refer to a particular boy – was a rapist. The school investigated and concluded (1) the boy had not assaulted anyone and (2) the note led to the boy being ostracized. The school sanctioned the girl. She sued. Ultimately the First Circuit found she couldn’t be punished because her message was protected free speech.

In theory schools can ban speech that might lead to bullying, but they need grounds for predicting that will happen. The First Circuit found this school’s claim dubious because few students had even seen the cryptic note.

Other Circuits

Federal courts throughout the country have decided Tinker-like cases that involve messages about “identity.” They point in different directions. In Zamecnik (2011), the 7th Circuit found students had a right to declare “be happy, not gay.” (ADF represented them, arguing in press releases that the censorship constituted anti-Christian discrimination.) But in Harper (2006), the Ninth Circuit nixed a shirt that read “Homosexuality is shameful.” (The decision was vacated on technical grounds.) Multiple courts have allowed schools to ban the confederate flag where racial conflict flared.

And in 2005, the Southern District of Ohio green-lit a shirt that read: “Homosexuality is a Sin; Islam is a Lie; Abortion is Murder.”

Passion of the Drone Killer

David Barron in 2022

A three-judge panel of the First Circuit heard Liam’s appeal: David Barron (an Obama appointee), Rogieree Thompson (Obama), and Lara Montecalvo (Biden).

Barron’s nomination to the bench was controversial. He’d been a Harvard law professor for most of his career. But during a stint at the US Department of Justice, 2009-10, he drafted secret memos offering President Barack Obama a legal argument for killing an American overseas, Anwar Awlaki, by drone strike. The first memo, which guided Obama for months, appeared glib and sketchy – perhaps authorizing the error-prone CIA to nail any American abroad whom it suspected of plotting terrorist attacks. US forces killed Awlaki in 2011.

The New York Times editorial board described one of Barron’s murder memos as "a slapdash pastiche of legal theories—some based on obscure interpretations of British and Israeli law—that was clearly tailored to the desired result.”

Just a year or so prior to granting Obama a rationale to kill Americans, Barron believed the Constitution placed strict limits on executive war powers. Republican George W. Bush was president at the time.

In 2014, the Senate confirmed Barron 53-45 over the objections of the ACLU and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), among others. He became Chief Judge of the First Circuit in 2022 based on seniority. (Some judges on the circuit were appointed earlier but they hold “senior status” now.)

Barron dominated the LM v. Town of Middleborough oral argument, during which his demeanor fluctuated jarringly. With the ADF attorney, Barron sounded irritated and combative. When Middleborough’s attorney stood up for her turn, Barron struck a droll tone. It sounded like he was thinking out loud about the hardest points he’d have to address in his opinion, tossing them out in case she could help, and then shrugging each time she proved useless. (She essentially argued schools should have total discretion to ban speech.) Then for ADF’s rebuttal he was fired up again.

Addressing Liam’s attorney, Barron spouted cliches: the nonbinary kids’ “identity was being publicly debated”; there was a “suicide risk.” When Liam’s attorney pointed out that the school wasn’t so inclusive of his client, Barron interrupted and badgered him: “No one was saying his gender didn’t exist! … Was a core characteristic of his said not to exist?” (Amusingly, counsel for Middleborough had just said that “male is not a gender.”)

In June 2024, the court ruled against Liam. Barron drafted the opinion.

The ruling sidesteps Norris, the rape-allegation precedent, by finding Liam’s shirt targets “characteristics of personal identity.”

From there, Barron compares the matter to other circuits’ decisions. To distinguish it from Zamecnik (“be happy, not gay”), he relies on that court’s finding that the slogan would not “have even a slight tendency to … poison the educational atmosphere.” Really?! Though I agree with the pro-speech outcome of that case, I think it’s dishonest to say the T-shirt wouldn’t harsh the classroom’s vibe even slightly for gay students. But Barron blithely asserts that “there are only two genders” is a “more overtly demeaning message” than “be happy, not gay.”

Barron then enunciates a new test that he says is rooted in the other circuits’ jurisprudence. Schools may ban T-shirt messages if (citations omitted):

“(1) the expression is reasonably interpreted to demean one of those characteristics of personal identity, given the common understanding that such characteristics are ‘unalterable or otherwise deeply rooted’ and that demeaning them ‘strike[s] a person at the core of his being,’ and

(2) the demeaning message is reasonably forecasted to ‘poison the educational atmosphere’ due to its serious negative psychological impact on students with the demeaned characteristic and thereby lead to ‘symptoms of a sick school -- symptoms therefore of substantial disruption.’”

Barron is essentially beaming a “protected class” analysis from the 14th Amendment into the First Amendment. He doesn’t explicitly cite the 14th Amendment because (1) there’s no precedent for such a teleport and (2) gender identity is not a protected characteristic under the Supreme Court’s 14th Amendment jurisprudence.

Barron says this test fits within Tinker’s loophole for schools needing to prevent “material disruption.”

Applying his new test, Barron agrees with the District Court’s finding that the two-genders shirt demeans nonbinary students because it “may communicate that only two gender identities -- male and female -- are valid, and any others are invalid or nonexistent." If there are only two genders, then students “who do not identify as either male or female have no gender with which they may identify.”

Barron defers to Middleborough’s concern that the shirt would disrupt the learning environment because “it knew the serious nature of the struggles, including suicidal ideation, that some of those [transgender] students had experienced related to their treatment based on their gender identities by other students[.]”

This delegation of power to school officials is notable because the legal precedents – particularly Norris – got into the weeds to determine precisely what the nexus was between the speech and the predicted harms, and in some cases found the school’s forecast of disruption was not grounded firmly enough in fact. Barron engages in no such scrutiny of Middleborough and its suicide bogeyman.

Case of the Missing Facts

This ruling is on a motion for a preliminary injunction. The parties haven’t conducted discovery – and they don’t think it’s necessary. They’ve stated they don’t dispute any of each other’s factual claims.

So when Middleborough asserts that some of its students are contemplating suicide because they are nonbinary and their classmates don’t believe they are nonbinary, Liam doesn’t contest that. His argument is something like, “that’s not my problem, give me my rights.” Or as ADF put it in its First Circuit brief, “under Tinker, subjective psychological intrusions don’t count.”

Liam doesn’t assert that there are two sexes, only that he is entitled to say they are.

A ruling in Liam’s favor would bolster the First Amendment’s “F your feelings” principle. Valuable. But aiming for a broad ruling means the lawyers aren’t homing in on the gender indoctrination machine – its schoolhouse lies about suicide and how many sexes there are.

The reason kids think they are nonbinary, or that life is not worth living if people don’t respect their gender identity, could be because adults teach them that. Discovery might show Nichols is scapegoating Liam for a disruption that it created.

Liam can conduct discovery later. But he’s asking the Supreme Court to review the case now, in its fact-lite form. It’s risky. The three liberal justices recently showed themselves, in Skrmetti oral argument, to suffer from compassion derangement syndrome, and Justice Clarence Thomas has indicated he’s skeptical of Tinker. If just one more conservative justice has distaste for student protests or anxiety about harms to “trans kids” (Kavanaugh comes to mind), Liam could lose, setting a precedent for schools to control how kids talk about gender.

The Supreme Court should decide in the next few months whether to grant certiorari, meaning, hear the case. If it does, ADF will face a formidable adversary. Douglas Hallward-Driemeier of Ropes & Gray – a multinational law firm headquartered in Boston – has entered an appearance for Middleborough. Among his Supreme Court victories is Obergefell, the 2015 decision that legalized gay marriage nationwide.

I don’t know what Middleborough’s arrangement is with this superstar, but recall that “trans kids” are biglaw’s favorite repository of pro bono largesse.

Middleborough’s response to Liam’s petition for Supreme Court review is due January 21, 2025.

MacRae v. Mattos (1st Circuit, June 2024)

Kari MacRae was born in Plymouth County and wound up settling in Bourne, Mass., which is down the coast. A mother of four and grandmother of five, she earned her college degree in mid-life. In 2021 she ran unopposed for the local school board as a Republican. On election day she posted a video on Tik Tok under the username NanaMacof4. Transcript:

“... the reason I’m taking on this responsibility is to ensure that students … are not being taught critical race theory. That they’re not being taught that the country was built on racism. So they’re not being taught that they can choose whether or not they want to be a girl or a boy. …”

Around this time MacRae also re-posted, liked, or was tagged in six Tik Tok memes:

MacRae was elected. A few months later, in August 2021, she began a new job as a math/business teacher at Hanover High School, which is not in Bourne. A Bourne alum complained about her posts to the Bourne School Board, which led to her outing on September 1. Within weeks, the Boston Globe and Cape Cod Times published stories about the Republican grandma stalking Barnstable County. MacRae apologized for “anyone feeling offended” and said, “I now feel that I have let some down.”

Hanover fired her “in light of [her] social media posts would have a significant impact on student learning at HHS.” School officials had just completed an investigation in which they learned MacRae did not discuss politics in the classroom, no one in Hanover had complained about her, and she used students’ preferred pronouns.

MacRae retained Judicial Watch to represent her in suing Hanover Public Schools. JW is a conservative nonprofit that focuses on government accountability, for example by litigating public record requests. MacRae’s JW attorney is based in Washington, DC.

The Law

Public school teachers are government employees, which means they have some First Amendment protection against being fired for their speech. In the words of one of MacRae’s briefs, the government employee must show that:

“(1) she spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern;

(2) … her interest in commenting upon those matters outweighed the government entity’s interests in the efficient performance of its public services; and

(3) … her protected speech was a substantial or motivating factor in the government entity’s adverse employment action.”

But MacRae was not a government employee when she memed. She argues that since she was a private citizen at that point, she was entitled to speak out without fear of future retaliation. The test I outlined above – known as Pickering – should not apply because she has nothing to prove.

But if Pickering does apply to MacRae’s speech, her argument goes, she should pass that test. The first and third prongs aren’t disputed. Only the second one is, because Hanover argues that her past speech could potentially cause a “disruption” at school. But it did not cause a disruption.

After the parties conducted discovery, the federal District of Massachusetts granted summary judgment to Hanover. MacRae appealed to the First Circuit.

The Judges

Rogieree Thompson

MacRae’s appeal was heard by a three-judge panel: Rogieree Thompson (Obama appointee), Gustavo Gelpi (Biden), and Bruce Selya (Reagan).

For years Thompson was a beloved state court judge in Rhode Island. When Obama took office she applied to serve on the federal District of RI bench. He nominated her instead to be the first black woman to sit on the First Circuit in 2010, and the Senate confirmed her 98-0.

In 2014, Thompson reviewed a trans-prisoner case, Kosilek. Serving on a five-judge en banc panel that split 3-2, she penned one of the dissents. In her view the male prisoner belonged in a women’s prison:

“The [lower] court … had reason to be skeptical of the [Department of Correction’s] adamant contention that Kosilek would cause inmate climate issues at [the women’s prison] due to the fact that [he] murdered [his] wife. Undoubtedly inmates find other inmates offensive for a plethora of reasons, such as, race, religion, gang affiliation, sexual orientation, or the crime committed. Prisons deal with these situations on a routine basis ...”

Thompson also sat on the LM v. Middleborough panel, where she chimed in, “what if his shirt said all transgender kids are retarded?”

Decision

Thompson authored the 3-0 decision upholding summary judgment for Hanover. It’s saucy. For example:

• “Positive that Defendants had unconstitutionally retaliated against her for exercising her First Amendment rights, Macrae took them to court”

• “MacRae did not take her termination on the chin.”

• “[MacRae] urges us to chuck the Supreme Court's nuanced Garcetti framework for claims brought by public employees out the window …”

• “In response, MacRae offers yet another comeback”

The opinion is also colloquial:

• “For those new to all this legal mumbo jumbo, qualified immunity is …”

• “Eagle-eyed readers following along closely will note …”

• “Summary-judgment decisions get de novo review on appeal, which, to speak plainly, just means that we give the arguments and the issues a fresh look …”

Apparently Thompson is writing for the public. Normally I’d find that fantastic, but her mocking tone toward MacRae – a civic-minded grandmother who seems genuinely concerned with respecting all kids – casts a pall over her populist project.

After dispatching with the argument that pre-employment speech should be judged differently than while-employed speech (MacRae’s attorney lacked satisfying answers to the judges’ questions on that at oral argument), Thompson applies the Pickering balancing test.

Political speech should receive the greatest protection under Pickering. Thompson acknowledges that MacRae’s speech was political but finds:

“MacRae’s First Amendment interest weighs less than it normally would because some of her memes comment upon such hot-button political issues in a mocking, derogatory, and disparaging manner. See Curran … (‘Speech done in a vulgar, insulting, and defiant manner is entitled to less weight in the Pickering balancing.’) … For example, the meme about Dr. Rachel Levine was clearly insulting and disparaging …”

Curran is not on point. There, an unhinged sheriff went off on his boss in a violent public missive, referring to him as Hitler and encouraging his colleagues to revolt against him. This speech wasn’t political; it would be incitement if it weren’t so obviously crazy; and it was “defiant” toward the speaker’s boss, which is key to the analysis of whether it was OK for his boss to fire him. By contrast, Rachel Levine had nothing to do with the Hanover High workplace. Thompson is stretching to argue that the Constitution prefers dry, somber exegeses over funny memes. Did I mention New England is home of the puritans?

(That worker-criticizing-boss scenario is typical of Pickering close-calls. You don’t see as many lawsuits by public workers who were fired for expressing political opinions because most government agencies try not to be fascist.)

Thompson quotes a chilling line from the Supreme Court:

“Government employers … need a significant degree of control over their employees’ words and actions[.]”

In that case, the Supreme Court was addressing on-the-job speech by a prosecutor about one of his cases that frustrated his office’s goal of winning a trial. Again – very different from MacRae. I hope the Supremes wouldn’t extend their “significant degree of control” logic to cover political opinions expressed outside of work.

We might find out. MacRae appealed her First Circuit loss to the Supreme Court. It hasn’t decided yet whether to hear the case.

In the Pipeline

Several other trans-kid cases are winding their way through the federal courts in New England.

A small-town school barred three parents from wearing “XX” armbands to their daughters’ soccer game this fall. It was a protest of the league’s allowing a trans-identified boy to compete. The parents sued, represented by the DC-based Institute for Free Speech. At a recent hearing before the District of New Hampshire, the judge appeared skeptical of the parents. Any appeal would be heard by the First Circuit.

The boy in question was Parker Tirrell. He had recently sued to challenge a New Hampshire law that segregates sports by sex. The District of NH (different judge from the armband case) granted him a preliminary injunction. The ACLU of NH and the biglaw firm Goodwin Procter represented him.

In a “secret school transition” lawsuit, parents argue that a middle school in Ludlow (the outskirts of bucolic Translandia in western Massachusetts) socially transitioned their kids without telling them, in violation of their constitutional right to direct the upbringing of their children. (Elsewhere teachers have argued that secret-transition policies infringe on their free speech rights.) They’re represented by the Georgia-based Child & Parental Rights Campaign, a nonprofit firm that was founded to defend families against gender encroachment. The District of Massachusetts dismissed the lawsuit; the parents appealed. The First Circuit heard oral argument in September 2023 – the panel included Thompson – and has not yet ruled. This time lapse is irregular.

In August, Nicole Solas sued the Town of South Kingstown and others in the District of Rhode Island. She’d filed a public records request to learn, among other things, why the teachers at her kid’s school, Peacedale Elementary, refused to refer to students as boys and girls. She alleges the SK school committee colluded with the teachers’ union in suing her to block the release of the records – an attack on her First Amendment right to petition the government. (Disclosure: Peacedale Elementary retaliated against me for petitioning against a mean librarian in 1995.) Solas is represented by the California-based Dhillon Law Group, whose other clients include the detransitioner Chloe Cole and incarcerated women suing California for locking them up with men. Her lawyer reports an address in New Jersey.

This is not Solas’s only lawsuit against SK. She already won one related to public records. Apparently when you drop an energetic conservative parent into a small-town progressive school district, the grounds for litigation are as unlimited as gender itself.

Resolved Amicably

Those court battles aren’t the only anti-gender civic activity in New England.

In October, the Tewksbury Public Library (in Moulton’s district north of Boston) scheduled but then cancelled a web presentation on sex differences by a Nebraska expert on sport science. Citizens publicly spoke out and persuaded the library to hold the event after all.

In November, MIT and Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender hosted a talk on detransition in Cambridge. It had previously been planned but cancelled by the young speaker’s school, the nearby Berklee College of Music. About 30-40 people attended, including MIT students who objected to the message. Discussion ran for three hours.

This year a local paper in Northampton, Mass. (the capital of Translandia) published a gender-critical op-ed and letters in support of it.

No Education without Representation

Most censorship cases involve unpopular messages. In a democratic society, authorities are loath to condemn popular ideas because doing so gets them kicked out of a job, or at least made fun of.

But in New England, school officials and judges keep trying to stamp out views on gender that appear to be dominant, at least nationally. These ideas align with the (conservative) political party that runs all three branches of the federal government and a (liberal) feminist and LGB movement. Last year only 26% of Americans supported males in girls’ sports, and the trajectory was headed down.

Perhaps gender-critical views are less popular in the GeMS blast zone. Maybe most yankees support the LGBTQ agenda. Just like they supported King George in the 1760s.

A New England trait that drove me crazy when I lived there was regional chauvinism. Massachusetts legal aid lawyers routinely describe their programs as national leaders (being a national leader is not actually a thing in that industry). When I told a relative about the 2 Genders oral argument she replied, “it’s scary that this is happening in Boston – not just some little court in Appalachia.” (The City on a Hill is smaller than Nashville.) Another relative has insisted to me that Boston has great weather.

It’s likely that the LGBTQ allies at the First Circuit, Ropes & Gray, and sundry school boards view themselves as guardians of progressive New England virtue. They’re perched in their watchtowers scanning for outside invaders. One if by land, two if by evangelical Christianity, three if by white nationalism …

A restive crowd of natives is jostling behind them in thirty-year old LL Bean coats. “Hey! We’re right here!”

They’re not carrying pitchforks. They just want to talk.