by WorldTribune Staff, December 5, 2024 Real World News
In a case that could effect similar laws in 25 states, the Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared likely to uphold Tennessee’s ban on transgender treatments for children.
Five of the six conservative justices “voiced varying degrees of skepticism of arguments” made by the Biden-Harris administration and Chase Strangio, the ACLU lawyer, who is openly transgender, for Tennessee families challenging the ban, The Associated Press reported on Thursday.
Tennessee’s law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors.
Chief Justice John Roberts questioned whether judges, rather than lawmakers, should be weighing in on a question of regulating medical procedures, an area usually left to the states.
”The Constitution leaves that question to the people’s representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor,” Roberts said in an exchange with Strangio.
Tennessee has argued that the state doesn’t discriminate against sex because the ban impacts both boys and girls. The law targets the intended medical purpose to prevent minors from “risky, unproven medical interventions,” according to Tennessee Solicitor General J. Matthew Rice.
Rice compared the trans treatments to lobotomies and eugenics to argue the state has a duty to intervene.
“Giving testosterone to a boy with a deficiency is not the same treatment as giving it to a girl who has psychological distress associated with her body,” he argued.
Justice Samuel Alito pressed Strangio, the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the Supreme Court, about whether trans individuals should be legally designated as a group that’s susceptible to discrimination.
Strangio answered that being transgender does fit that legal definition, though he acknowledged under Alito’s questioning there are a small number of people who de-transition. “So it’s not an immutable characteristic, is it?” Alito said.
Alito, along with Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, highlighted a point made by Tennessee in its legal briefs claiming that health authorities in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the United Kingdom found that the trans medical treatments “pose significant risks with unproven benefits.”
If those countries “are pumping the brakes on this kind of treatment,” Kavanaugh said, why should the Supreme Court question Tennessee’s actions?
Kavanaugh, who has coached his daughters’ youth basketball teams, also wondered whether a ruling against Tennessee would give transgender athletes “a constitutional right to participate in girls’ sports.”
JUSTICE ALITO EXPOSES THE LIES OF GENDER AFFIRMING CARE.pic.twitter.com/jbPFzsVjAo
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