From T. Rex to Truth: Why Arkansas’s Court Victory Matters for America’s Kids

My 2½-year-old grandson is absolutely convinced he’s a dinosaur. Not just any dinosaur, he’s a full-on Tyrannosaurus rex. From the moment he wakes up, he stomps through the house with all the swagger a pint-sized predator can muster. He hunches forward, tucks his tiny arms in close to his chest like stubby T. rex forelimbs, and charges across the living room carpet as though he’s chasing down a pack of panicked herbivores. He roars, loud, unprompted, and with the serious intent of someone who truly believes he is the apex predator of the late Cretaceous period.

Mealtimes are his most “authentic” performances. Forget utensils, he dives face-first into his cereal bowl, tearing into Cheerios the way a carnivore would dismantle a hapless hadrosaur. Milk dribbles down his chin, and he emerges triumphant, chewing with the proud grin of a hunter who has just brought down his breakfast.

And it’s adorable. We laugh. We take videos. But here’s what we don’t do: we don’t affirm his belief that he is, in fact, a dinosaur. His mom doesn’t run out to buy him a dinosaur habitat or schedule consultations with a veterinary paleontologist. She doesn’t insist his preschool teacher refer to him as “T. rex” or tell him that he will always be a dinosaur deep inside. She smiles, plays along in moments, but she also tells him the truth: he’s a little boy.

Why? Because she’s a well-grounded adult who knows that this phase will pass. As children grow, they shed imaginary worlds like last year’s clothes. My grandson will outgrow his dinosaur days. He’ll discover new games, new fascinations, and one day, probably sooner than we’d like, he’ll be more concerned with homework and sports than with stomping around the house on prehistoric patrol.

Now, imagine a different scenario. Imagine if his mother were a blue-haired progressive steeped in victimhood culture, equipped with a self-diagnosed bouquet of psychological disorders, and eager for social validation. In that world, if my grandson declared he was a girl instead of a T. rex, she wouldn’t correct him; she’d affirm him. She’d put him in dresses, take him to a “gender clinic,” and shop around for a surgeon who could make his “authentic self” permanent. All before he’d even learned how to tie his shoes.

One fantasy is met with loving guidance back toward reality. The other is met with a path of irreversible drugs, surgeries, and lifelong medical dependency. And it is here where our culture has lost its mind.

That’s why last week’s decision from the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is so significant. In an 8-2 ruling, the court upheld Arkansas’s 2021 ban on transgender medical interventions for minors, overturning a lower court decision that had struck it down.

This wasn’t just a routine appeal. The court drew on a recent Supreme Court ruling that upheld a similar law in Tennessee, but Arkansas’ victory went further. Writing for the majority, U.S. Circuit Judge Duane Benton made it clear: the Constitution contains no parental right to procure gender-transition procedures for children. “This court finds no such right in this Nation’s history and tradition,” Benton wrote.

The ruling directly counters the narrative pushed by activists and their legal allies, who claim that such bans violate parents’ 14th Amendment rights to due process. The court flatly rejected the idea, setting a precedent that strengthens the ability of states to protect minors from irreversible medical harm.

The law itself wasn’t easy to pass. Back in 2021, the Arkansas legislature had to override a veto from then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson—a Republican, no less, to get it through. At the time, Arkansas became the first state in the nation to prohibit gender-transition surgeries and hormone treatments for minors. Since then, many other states have followed their lead, recognizing that the duty of lawmakers is not to indulge every cultural fad but to safeguard children from harm.

State Rep. Robin Lundstrum, who sponsored the Arkansas bill, summed it up: “This is not medicine; this affirmation is not science. We are mutilating kids.” She’s right. Puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical alterations are being sold as “care,” but they carry risks that even many adults cannot fully comprehend—sterility, loss of sexual function, bone density problems, and irreversible changes in voice and appearance.

The activists, of course, are furious. Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas, called the decision “tragically unjust” and claimed it “harms children.” But notice the rhetorical sleight of hand—they call harm “care” and call protection “harm.”

This is the same kind of upside-down logic that would have my grandson’s dinosaur identity “affirmed” in the name of love. But love isn’t lying to a child. Love is protecting them from decisions they cannot possibly understand at such a young age

The Arkansas case is more than just a legal battle—it’s a cultural litmus test. It asks whether we are still capable of telling our children the truth, even when that truth is unfashionable.

For decades, the left’s cultural project has been to blur and ultimately erase boundaries—between male and female, adult and child, reality and fantasy. And gender ideology is its most aggressive weapon. If you can convince a child to doubt his own biology, you can convince him of anything.

But laws like Arkansas’s tell a different story: one where the state recognizes its role in stepping in when a vulnerable population is at risk. These laws don’t outlaw adults from making bad choices for themselves; they stop adults from making irreversible choices for children who lack the maturity to give informed consent.

Make no mistake, this fight isn’t over. Activists will keep challenging these laws in court. Politicians will face pressure from corporate lobbies and the media to cave. But the Arkansas ruling, backed by the Supreme Court’s earlier decision in Tennessee, gives states a strong legal foundation to stand on.

And here’s why that matters: just as my grandson will one day outgrow his dinosaur phase, countless children experiencing gender confusion will grow out of it—if we let them. But if we put them on puberty blockers, flood their bodies with cross-sex hormones, and cut away healthy organs, there’s no “outgrowing” that. There’s only regret, medical complications, and the quiet devastation of a life forever altered by adult indulgence in a childhood phase.

We owe our children better. We owe them the gift of time, the chance to grow, to change, to mature without the pressure of making decisions they can never take back. And thanks to Arkansas, that gift will be preserved for thousands of kids who might otherwise have been lost to the false promises of “gender-affirming care.”

My grandson is not a dinosaur. And no matter how many times he roars, no loving adult in his life will pretend otherwise. That’s what good parents do. That’s what responsible states do. And that’s what Arkansas just did for its children.