Elon Musk calls for ACLU to be defunded … but there’s one big problem with that - INTO
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Elon Musk calls for ACLU to be defunded … but there’s one big problem with that

David Hudson

Elon Musk
Elon Musk (Photo: Shutterstock)

Elon Musk posted a tweet yesterday calling for the defunding of the ACLU: The American Civil Liberties Union. 

In another post, he revealed why he’s turned on the long-running organization. 

He reshared a tweet from right-wing, anti-woke activist Andy Ngo. It was about a case now under consideration at the Supreme Court. The Biden administration and ACLU are challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Among those to address the court yesterday was ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio. He is the first known trans person to argue before the Supreme Court. 

Musk tweeted, “Sterilizing minor children before the age of consent is deeply wrong and many who had surgery now greatly regret it.”

Against gender-affirming care for minors

Despite having a trans daughter, Musk has made it clear he believes trans people are suffering from the “woke mind virus”. He often uses his platform to speak out against the rights of trans people. 

Musk’s tweets both racked up over 170,000k likes. However, many quickly took him to take over his call to defund the ACLU. 

Although Musk was tapped by Donald Trump to lead DOGE, the new ‘Department of Government Efficiency’, the ACLU is out of his reach. This is because, as ACLU explains on its website, it’s “non-partisan and non-profit. We do not receive any government funding. Our work is supported by member dues as well as contributions and grants from private foundations and individuals.”

Musk’s donations to the ACLU

Secondly, Musk should be well aware of how the ACLU was founded… given he previously boasted in 2018 about being one of its “top donors”. 

In 2022, ACLU confirmed to Rolling Stone that Musk had donated around $6 million to the organization. It did not provide a timeline of when the donations were made. 

Clearly, it sounds like Musk’s donations have dried up. 

Detransition

In regards to Musk’s other tweet about “many” people regretting surgery, “many” is an indeterminate term. 

A study published in the American Journal of Pediatrics in 2022 found that of 317 kids and adolescents tracked, 94% remained in their trans gender, while 7.3% re-transitioned during the five-year follow-up.

That study concluded, “These results suggest that retransitions are infrequent. More commonly, transgender youth who socially transitioned at early ages continued to identify that way.”

This year’s US Trans Survey included 92,000 participants. The vast majority felt happier after embarking on their transition. Ninety-four percent “who lived at least some of the time in a different gender than the one they were assigned at birth reported that they were either ‘a lot more satisfied’ (79%) or ‘a little more satisfied’ (15%) with their life. 

Three percent (3%) reported that transitioning gender made them ‘neither more nor less satisfied’ with their life, 1% were ‘a little less satisfied’, and 2% were ‘a lot less satisfied’ with their life.”

In regards to the Supreme Court case (U.S. v Skrmetti), judicial observers believe the right-leaning court is likely to uphold the Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors. It became law in the state in 2023. The SCOTUS ruling is not expected until next summer. 

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