The Supreme Court appears to be against a ban on gender-affirming care for children
Transgender Rights: The Tennessee Supreme Court ruled against telegraph-based treatment for minors in the absence of a sex
I was reinforced that fear when I entered the legal profession. In Boston in 2007, one of my law school professors at Northeastern told our class that we needed to abide by traditional gender norms in court. She instructed that women should wear skirts to appear before juries, and after a presentation in class she told me that I was too “soft-spoken” to be seen as an effective male advocate. My appearance was the subject of mockery outside of class. At an internship in New York City, some court officers and judges referred to me as the “Doogie Howser” and asked my supervisors if my kid could work on a day off. I was perceived as too boyish to be either a woman or an adult man. I had one job interview in which staff questioned if I would be taken seriously in court. After graduating, I stayed away from the courtroom because of my fear that my clients would be a distraction and I wouldn’t be able to focus on my job.
Front and center at the Supreme Court on Wednesday is the battle over the rights of transgender children. There is a state law in Tennessee that restricts access to gender-affirming care for children.
NPR put the question to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, which until the law was passed was the major center in Tennessee for providing gender-affirming care for minors. The center did not comment on the question after three days.
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar put the government’s case this way: “States have leeway to regulate gender-affirming care. Tennessee did not attempt to tailor the law to it’s health concerns.
The real purpose of the ban telegraphs in the language of the statute. Specifically, the statute encourages minors to “appreciate their sex” and bans treatments that “might encourage minors to be disdainful of their sex.”
The Gender-affirming Care Problem in Western Europe, Sen. John Bursch, of the Alliance Defending Freedom, says “It’s not all about drugs, but about how we’re going through it”
Sen. Johnson said that Western Europe had countries that were ahead of us in terms of these types of medications. “Because they’ve had a longer runway, they’re seeing that the adverse effects of some of the medications far outweigh any benefit that they have.”
John Bursch of the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom echoes that sentiment, noting that some Western European and Scandinavian countries have not only been at this longer, they have national health care systems that cover everyone.
They can follow a patient from birth to death. And so if someone gets cross-sex hormones for the purpose of a gender change at age 15, they can look at how they’re doing at age 20,25, 45 65 and see what the outcomes were,” Bursch notes.
Drug access has not been revoked for minor already using the medication, despite the fact that these characterizations of European studies are highly controversial.
There is much about this issue that remains in dispute. The law forbids parents and children from even consulting doctors about treatments, but that’s not the only example that Samantha and Brian Williams point to. The law’s supporters deny that claim, varying degrees. Sen Johnson says that thelegislative intent is not something that prevents or restricts a conversation. “If the doctor was not encouraging someone to engage in an illegal procedure, a family could generally have a discussion about puberty blockers and hormone treatment,” says Bursch.
Over the past decade, as the number of adolescents identifying as transgender has risen sharply, doctors around the world have weighed the risks and benefits of what is called gender-affirming care, or treatments like puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries that align their bodies with their gender identities.
“People make assumptions. “They don’t know what it’s like, so it’s just a phase.” she says. “How slow the process is can make it feel pretty useless, especially given how far from reality it is.”
The First Supreme Court Decision Deciding to Discriminate Between Gender and Male Treatments: A State’s View of the Problem and Its Possible Implications
“You can’t get a tattoo in Tennessee unless you’re 18. You can’t do anything that involves smoking. He told NPR that you can’t drink. Johnson said that it felt like it was the best public policy to prevent kids from suffering irreversible consequences because Tennessee regulates a number of different types of medical procedures.
Jack Johnson, who introduced the challenged bill, says the law is just another example of the state exercising its regulatory power.
ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, the first openly trans lawyer to argue in front of the Supreme Court, represented the kids and their parents. He argued that Tennessee has banned these medications for only one purpose.
Prelogar said she acknowledged that there was a debate on the issue both in the United States and elsewhere, but she said she “stand[s] by that there is a consensus that these treatments can be medically necessary for some adolescents — and that’s true no matter what source you look at.”
Roberts cited what he described as scientific uncertainty about the longer-term implications gender-affirming medical treatments for minors and asked why the courts should get involved. That view was echoed by Justice Samuel Alito, who cited Swedish data and said it was directly contrary to the sweeping statement in your petition that “these treatments have benefits that greatly outweigh the risks and the dangers.”
The Supreme Court argument touched on approaches of other nations, as well as the relevance of a previous ruling that protected trans workers from discrimination at work.
The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared skeptical Wednesday of a challenge to a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for transgender children.
“The Constitution leaves that question to the people’s representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said.
Justice Jackson said there was an abdication of responsibility when he left the question to the states. She said she was suddenly quite worried.
There are more than 20 states with similar laws. The court’s decision is expected to yield a significant statement on the rights of people with gender identity disorders against the backdrop of a public debate about how gender identity should be used in places like sports.
The wide-ranging argument touched on the approaches of other nations, the relevance of a previous ruling protecting workers from discrimination at work, and the rights of parents.
But the core question the justices focused on was whether the Tennessee law made distinctions based on sex, which would subject it to a demanding form of judicial scrutiny and make it harder for the law to survive.
The families and the Biden administration requested review by the Supreme Court. The families’ petition posed two questions: whether the law violated the equal protection clause and whether it ran afoul of “the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the medical care of their children.” The equal protection claim was pressed by the administration.
J. Matthew Rice, Tennessee’s solicitor general, disagreed, arguing that the law was passed for medical purposes, and several of the conservative justices appeared to agree that it did not amount to sex discrimination.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett repeated a statement made by Justice Matthew M. kavanski that the law’s burdens fall on both boys and girls because neither can transition.
Some conservative justices also seemed inclined to follow the court’s approach in overturning Roe v. Wade in 2022. In that case, the majority said regulating abortion was a matter for the states.
The Tennessee equal protection clause is a heavy yellow light in the wake of the European Court of Arbitration for Gender-affirming Treatment for Teens
Most doctors in the United States support gender treatments for adolescents, based on guidelines written by professional medical groups. Europe has limited gender-related medical treatments for teenagers after scientific reviews found no evidence of long-term benefits.
Advocates backing gender-affirming care have said the treatments help relieve body dysphoria. More recent studies in the United States show that teenagers’ life satisfaction has improved after one or two years of treatment, though long term data has not been published.
“England’s pulling back and Sweden’s pulling back,” Justice Kavanaugh said. If it isn’t red light for the nine of us to constitutionalize the area when the rest of the world is slowing down, I think it’s a heavy yellow light.
The Tennessee law is different from the European responses, said Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the U.S. solicitor general, who argued on behalf of the Biden administration. She said it was a sweeping categorical ban.
The court will use a number of factors in determining whether a group should be granted protected status, such as whether they have political power, or if their traits are irreparably damaged.
“There are individuals who are born male, assigned male at birth, who at one point identify as female, but then later come to identify as male,” he said.
Justice Kavanaugh asked questions about sports, suggesting that it may not be “logically and legally possible” to strike down the Tennessee law but to uphold “laws that limit women’s and girls sports to exclude transgender athletes.”
She claimed there was nothing like this here. There is no way that the rights of other people are affected if we allow those who have carefully thought about it and consulted with their parents to access these medications that have health benefits recognized here and abroad.
The new case is about the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, which is similar to the Bostock case. Last year, a divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, in Cincinnati, ruled that Tennessee’s law had a rational basis as a reasonable legislative response to contested medical evidence.
The Constitution does not favor one over the other in this area and the nature of treatments makes it possible for more than one policy approach.
He said that he wanted to trust parents more than the state, since General Prelogar had said that there were not any direct harm to third parties.
The parental rights question is not before the court and there are times when the states have had to intervene to protect children.
The US Supreme Court on Wednesday disagreed with a Tennessee family’s petition to overturn the state’s law that restricts access to gender-affirming care for minors. The petition posed two questions: whether the law violated the equal protection clause and whether it ran afoul of “the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the medical care of their children”.