Former transgenders, parents and activists braved frigid temperatures on Wednesday morning to rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court to demand an end to the “butchery” and “trauma” of child sex-change surgeries and treatments.

The rally took place as the court heard oral arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti, a high-stakes case over the constitutionality of Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and transgender surgeries for minors. 

One of the rally speakers, Matt Walsh, who is a podcast host for the Daily Wire and creator of the “What Is a Woman” documentary, told Fox News Digital that the case is about “basic truth.”

“The trans agenda represents a unique, distinct threat to children. We have to stand up and protect them, that’s what this is all about,” he said. “If the Supreme Court gets this case right, then we could be looking at ultimately the death of the gender ideology industry. That’s what we want, and that’s what’s at stake.”

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The rally was organized by a diverse set of groups, including medical watchdog Do No Harm, the Heritage Foundation, Catholic Vote and the LGB Alliance.

One member of the LGB Alliance, Glenna Goldis, from Brooklyn, told Fox News Digital that many lesbian, gay and bisexual people see sex-change treatments as a form of conversion therapy.

“A lot of gay people feel strongly about this issue,” she said. “But we’re not able to get our voices out, because the LGBTQ lobby has so much money, and they drown us out, and they pretend that they’re speaking for gay people, but they do not.”

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Activists held a rally outside the U.S. Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., as the court heard oral arguments in the transgender treatments case of U.S. v. Skrmetti on Dec. 4, 2024. (Fox News Digital)

There was also a significant presence of former transgender people – “detransitioners” – many of whom said they did not want more children to undergo the negative health effects they had endured due to sex-altering treatments. 

One detransitioner, a woman named Laura Becker, told Fox News Digital that she had stopped the treatments after realizing that they were causing her incredible harm and trauma.

“My advocacy is around healing the trauma instead of permanently medically mutilating the bodies of children and vulnerable young adults like I was,” she said. “I took testosterone when I was 19, and I had my breasts sliced off when I was 20 years old, despite being suicidal. I ended up being diagnosed with PTSD two years later, just from the transition.”

“I had trauma already, which made me have an identity crisis, [and] then I had even more trauma from the medicalization,” Becker added. “That’s a permanent effect I live with for the rest of my life.”  

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A detransitioner named Claire A., from Maryland, told Fox News Digital that the vast majority of people who undergo sex change surgeries and treatments suffer from severe traumatic experiences that are only compounded by transitioning. (Fox News Digital)

Another detransitioner, named Claire A., from Maryland, told Fox News Digital that the vast majority of people who undergo sex-change surgeries and treatments suffer from severe traumatic experiences that are only compounded by transitioning.

“I started going to therapy for trauma that I experienced in my childhood that contributed to my trans identity, and through healing from that, I healed from the pain that made me feel I needed to change my body,” she said.

Despite ending her treatments, Claire said she continues to suffer daily pain.

“I’m three years off of testosterone, and I still experience pelvic floor dysfunction,” she said. “My voice hurts, I can’t raise my voice very loud, it hurts to talk. It hurts. My joints hurt. It’s not a fun life to live. I would like to keep other children from being forced to live this life.”

Adam Vena, a father from California, said he had lost custody of his son “because I was not a gender-affirming parent.” (Fox News Digital)

There were also several parents of transgender children who have been denied custody and access to their children because they would not affirm their transgender identities.  

“I haven’t held my son in four years, my son is six years old now,” Adam Vena, a father from California, told Fox News Digital.

Vena said that with the prompting of his son’s mother, his child, Aidan, began transitioning into a girl at two years old. Two years later, Vena said, he lost custody of his son, “because I was not a gender-affirming parent.”

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“A California court ordered my son to go to a gender clinic at a Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles when I requested to sit in on the gender assessment, they denied me access to ask my own questions as his father,” he explained. “They also denied me a phone call. So, me being a father has been completely cut out of my son’s life.” 

Harrison Tinsley, another California father who recently regained custody of his son, told Fox News Digital, “I think this is one of the greatest evils of our time, like our lobotomy or slavery, transgender mutilation of children.”

“The time to stop this is right now,” said Tinsley. “The Supreme Court’s going to rule the right way, and I’m hoping that Trump and Congress can ban this federally, stop the mutilation of children and stop this irreversible damage.” 

As a Florida community mourns the loss of three law enforcement officers killed in a tragic crash last month, one local boy is stepping up to help with a timeless childhood venture — a lemonade stand.

“I saw a need and I just thought that’s what Jesus would do,” 9-year-old Charlie Allsup said during an interview on “Fox & Friends First,” Thursday. “I do what Jesus would do, so I just thought I could help.”

Charlie’s little sister attends the same daycare as the son of fallen Palm Beach Deputy Sheriff Ignacio “Dan” Diaz, which inspired Charlie to set up his lemonade stand to raise funds for the family’s tuition costs.

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Diaz, Deputy Sheriff Ralph “Butch” Waller and Corporal Luis Paez were struck by and killed by a Jeep SUV on Nov. 21 while stopped with their motorcycles on the shoulder of Southern Boulevard.

Waller and Paez were pronounced dead at the hospital shortly after the crash, while Diaz was in critical condition and underwent surgery at the hospital, but later succumbed to his injuries. 

Thousands attended a memorial Tuesday morning in West Palm Beach, including President-elect Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

So far, Charlie’s lemonade stand has raised nearly $4,000 — enough to cover several months of daycare tuition for the Diaz family.

President Donald J. Trump, a Secret Service member, his son Donald Trump Jr., Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey DeSantis attend a memorial service for three fallen Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies at the South Florida Fairgrounds, Tuesday, December 03, 2024, in Palm Beach County. (Bill Ingram/Imagn)

“When families go through tragedies like this, they don’t always know what they need,” said Charlie’s mother, Christina. “What Charlie really did was give the families the ability to focus on the next minute, the next hour, the next day and not have to think of all those other burdens. And he gave our community the ability to contribute as well.”

The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office described Diaz as someone who “bravely fought but ultimately lost his battle due to injuries sustained in the tragic crash.” Diaz had served with the department since 2004, spending more than a decade in the motor unit.

Christina, who is married to a law enforcement officer, says watching her son take on this project has been emotional. 

“Parenting is hard, and I think as parents a lot of times we question whether the choices we are making are the right ones for our kids,” she said. “Then when you see something like this it really makes you feel good, like I must be doing something right.” 

Memorial service for three fallen Palm Beach County Sheriff’s deputies on December 3, 2024 in Palm Beach County. President-elect Donald J. Trump, his son Eric, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis attended the service.  (Bill Ingram/Imagn)

While Washington is enveloped in battles over President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees, a different but equally raucous appointments battle boiled over this week just 300 miles down US-1 from the nation’s capital.

North Carolina Republicans, seeing their veto-proof supermajority slip away by a single legislative seat in the state House, are trying to override outgoing Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper’s disapproval of a bill that would move gubernatorial authority over the NC Board of Elections to the State Auditor’s office.

The Senate overrode the veto but not without an uproar that led to the gallery being cleared. The House is poised to attempt its complementary override, but the GOP’s plans have hit a snag there.

The proposal was part of a bill chiefly geared toward Hurricane Helene relief, and was lambasted by Democrats as a power grab, in part due to the fact the GOP flipped the executive branch office with Auditor-elect Dave Boliek – but failed to see their gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson best Gov.-elect Josh Stein.

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However, Robinson – as the Senate’s presiding officer – moved to clear the gallery after raucous protestations and chants of “Shame, Shame, Shame!” erupted above lawmakers preparing to vote on the veto override. Robinson has thus far had to do so twice, according to Carolina Public Press.

As the eventually successful vote was about take place, a woman shouted “[the law] destroys the will of the voter – it’s voter suppression!”

“It restructures the entire state constitution.”

Robinson, without raising his voice, spoke into his mic that the woman was “disrupting … the legislative process.”

When a gallery-watcher shouted that the bill lacked any “reasonable relief for hurricane victims,” Robinson banged his gavel and called out, “Clear the gallery.”

“Everybody’s gotta go,” he said, as police calmly ushered spectators out, threatening those who remained with arrest.

“You can bang that gavel,” one man was heard taunting Robinson as he left.

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North Carolina Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

State Sen. Natasha Marcus, D-Huntersville, was heard on video captured by the Raleigh News-Observer calling out to Robinson that he could not clear the whole gallery, because many people were respectfully watching the vote, and saying the capitol is “the people’s house.”

Before he vetoed the bill, Cooper told NBC Charlotte that the legislation “really didn’t provide immediate and direct funding to western North Carolina” despite being labeled as Helene relief. He called it a “massive power grab.”

Jim Stirling, a research associate at the North Carolina-based John Locke Foundation, has done a deep dive into the controversy, and his group filed an amicus brief with lawmakers in a recent lawsuit related to the matter.

“It is not under the purview of the governor to execute all laws. The other executive agencies of the executive branch or indeed other executive elected officials are in charge of executing law. Not just the governor,” Stirling said.

“Under [Cooper’s] argument, he says effectively that all appointments must be under him because he’s in charge of executing the law, and he has the power of appointment on this.”

Overriding the veto, however, could render part of the lawsuit moot, he said.

The lawsuit will “probably need to be restarted based on the argument that these appointments must be under the governor, not any other executive agency (like the auditor),” he said.

Neither Cooper nor Robinson responded to a request for comment. 

In moving election boards’ appointment power to the state auditor’s office, the state board’s activities would remain independent of Boliek and the executive branch, but his office would control its appointments and funding, according to NBC Charlotte.

What would change would be the current Democratic control of the elections board, an official told the outlet. The state auditor would also be able to appoint chairpersons in all 100 Tarheel State counties.

Currently, Cooper – and would-be Stein – also appoint the state board’s members, who must consist of three majority-party and two minority-party individuals.

Attempts to move appointment powers away from the governor’s office have been subject to lawsuits in recent months and years. The most recent ruling, in Cooper v. Berger, held that an attempt to move appointment powers to the legislature unlawfully infringed on the executive branch’s express power in that regard.

A prior case, McCrory v. Berger – bearing the name of Cooper’s predecessor, Republican Gov. Patrick McCrory – resulted in a state supreme court ruling holding that some appointments made by legislators violate separation of powers.

In the state House, three Republicans from the Helene-ravaged western part of the state voted against the bill, with one, Rep. Mark Pless of Canton, saying it had nothing “that was going to send money to the many needs in Western NC – it was simply moving money from one account to another.”

Pless, however, said the election board appointments portion appears “allowable by the legislature,” according to FOX-8. The veto-override in the lower chamber, therefore, could come up just short if the trio do not change their original positions.