This truly is the best news a parent could hear. An anti-child-mutilation bill that was signed by Tennessee Governor Bill Lee and challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) just got a 6-3 stamp of approval from the U.S. Supreme Court. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti fought for the protection of children and parental rights all the way to the top. SCOTUS heard oral arguments in December and issued a formal ruling yesterday in United States v. Skrmetti.
The Tennessee law, SB1, protects kids who have been wrongly convinced they were born in the wrong body from ruining their anatomy with puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and even gender-mutilation surgery.
The ACLU argued that “gender-affirming care” was protected under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and that Tennessee’s law was discriminatory toward a particular sexual orientation. This argument was based on the Bostock v. Clayton decision, in which a person can’t be denied a job based on sex, sexual orientation, or gender identity. As The Daily Signal’s Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell and Tyler O’Neil explain:
Bostock relied on a “but-for” reasoning, claiming that a male employee fired for sexual relations with other men would not be fired if he were female. Yet the court ruled that “changing a minor’s sex or transgender status does not alter the application of SB1. If a transgender boy seeks testosterone to treat his gender dysphoria, SB1 prevents a health care provider from administering it to him. If you change his biological sex from female to male, SB1 would still not permit him the hormones he seeks because he would lack a qualifying diagnosis for the testosterone — such as a congenital defect, precocious puberty, disease, or physical injury.”
In other words, SB1 equally bans “gender-affirming care” for confused males and females.
On Wednesday, the easy slam-dunk decision was given from the highest court in the land. SCOTUS voted along ideological lines, so, not surprisingly, Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson voted against upholding SB1. Justices John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett all agreed, with Justice Samuel Alito mostly agreeing.
“SB1 prohibits healthcare providers from administering puberty blockers and hormones to minors for certain medical uses,” Roberts wrote for the majority. “When, for example, a transgender boy (whose biological sex is female) takes puberty blockers to treat his gender incongruence, he receives a different medical treatment than a boy whose biological sex is male who takes puberty blockers to treat his precocious puberty.”
Alito concurred that the Tennessee law does not discriminate on the basis of sex. However, he asserts that it does discriminate on the basis of transgenderism. Barrett, in her concurring opinion, noted that transgenderism isn’t a suspect class, the bar for which is set very high. “We have held that the mentally disabled, the elderly, and the poor are not suspect classes,” she wrote. “In fact, as far as I can tell, we have never embraced a new suspect class under this test.” In other words, being “transgender” is by definition not an immutable characteristic.
For his part, Alito noted that transgenderism does not fit the criteria of a protected class (that criteria being that they are politically powerless). Pro-transgender activists have a very loud platform and seemingly have no trouble convincing politicians to champion their various causes. In other words, they are not politically powerless by any stretch.
Sotomayor wrote the dissenting opinion. She firmly believes this decision has caused irreparable harm to gender-confused children and their parents. “The majority subjects a law that plainly discriminates on the basis of sex to mere rational-basis review,” she stated. “By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.”
Sotomayor reproached the majority justices, writing, “The Court’s willingness to do so here does irrevocable damage to the Equal Protection Clause and invites legislatures to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sex classifications in plain sight. It also authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them.”
The editors of National Review already beautifully refuted this idea that such a law violated the Equal Protection Clause back in December:
The equal protection clause says nothing about sex discrimination. It has long been read to bar irrational distinctions on the basis of sex, for reasons similar to why it bars racial classifications. But while legal distinctions on the basis of race are irrational in all but a few very narrowly circumscribed situations, the courts have long recognized the commonsense reality that was obvious in 1868 and remains obvious to most Americans today: Sex differences are real. They have important consequences and never more so than in matters of biology, medicine, and reproduction. Humanity could not exist without those differences.
This Supreme Court decision is a win for parents, their children, and reality. It also opens the door for other states to do the same and protect their kids. SCOTUS deferred to federalism and to common sense. And for that, we are all grateful.
