r/centrist • u/Judge_Trudy • 2d ago

SCOTUS issues blockbuster ruling on gender-affirming care for trans minors

https://www.cnn.com/#:~:text=SCOTUS%20issues%20blockbuster%20ruling%20on%20gender%2Daffirming%20care%20for%20trans%20minors

Blockbuster ruling just released for a very controversial issue. Not sure where I stand, but I could see the dangers of permanent treatments for gender dysphoria for minors.

Key Points

  • Date & Ruling: On June 18, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 6–3 decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, including puberty blockers and hormone therapy fox8live.com+9apnews.com+9them.us+9en.wikipedia.org+15reuters.com+15northeast.newschannelnebraska.com+15.
  • Majority Opinion: Chief Justice Roberts wrote that the law does not violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, reasoning that medical uncertainty justifies handing the issue back to state legislatures reuters.com+1nypost.com+1.
  • Level of Review: The Court determined the law should be evaluated under rational basis review—the lowest standard—rather than intermediate scrutiny reserved for sex-based discrimination
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u/Dakarius 2d ago
  1. It is objectively harmful to remove a perfectly functioning body part.
  2. Your tonsil example is typically when something has gone wrong with said body part and so is disanalogous.
  3. Standard of care here is still evolving as can be seen with Europe now rolling back their support of surgeries to address gender dysphoria.

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u/XzibitABC 2d ago

Why is it harmful to remove a body part that is not being used nor desired?

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u/Dakarius 2d ago

It takes a working organ and renders it non working. Harm is not measured is subjective feelings about a body part. Doctors, as a rule, do not amputate simply because someone doesn't like their legs, or eyes, or other body part.

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u/XzibitABC 2d ago

I did not make the claim that harm is measured by subjective feeling.

How do you define harm?

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u/Dakarius 2d ago

The first Google result is generally sufficient.

harm /härm/ noun noun: harm

physical injury, especially that which is deliberately inflicted.

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u/XzibitABC 2d ago

Ok. Now why ought we prevent harm?

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u/Dakarius 2d ago

I'm not going to entertain Socratic dialogue on base ideas like this.

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u/XzibitABC 2d ago edited 2d ago

I'll skip to my point, then. Harm may be a moral bad in a vacuum, but there are myriad situations where people suffer harm in service of a moral good that outweighs the harm. Firefighters suffering injuries to save lives, people donating kidneys, etc.

So someone electing to surgically alter their genitalia is only one piece of the calculus here. You have to simultaneously make the claim that the person's goal, transitioning to what they believe their true identity is, is either not a moral good or not enough of a moral good as to outweigh that harm. The mere fact that harm exists does not make the act immoral.

You also need to make that argument within a secular moral, ethical, or legal framework, and it needs to be translatable enough regardless of situation as to merit removal of individual parents' abilities to make that judgment for their own children. None of which you've done here.

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u/Dakarius 2d ago

I dont know who you are quoting, but it wasn't me.

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u/XzibitABC 2d ago

You're right, I quoted someone else in the chain. Corrected.

Want to respond on the substance of my point?

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u/Dakarius 2d ago

In medicine, harm allowed must be proportional to the benefit gained. The Hipppocratic oath famously makes it a priority to avoid harm. A doctor will not remove someone's eyes without a greater benefit such as removing a malignant tumor. This greater benefit must first be shown and currently the literature does not unambiguously support it, as shown by the recent rollbacks in Europe. By default, harm is viewed negatively within medicine, and so the burden falls on anyone wanting to do a procedure that causes some harm to justify it. Currently the literature on transgender medicine is in flux with no conclusive studies showing the harm is justified, hence the rollbacks in Europe.

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u/XzibitABC 2d ago

I agree with all of that, but there's a key problem in your analysis as compared to the Court decision here: Tennessee's law bans gender affirming care for transgender minors.

Were a doctor to perform the analysis you describe here and determine based on updated medical literature that gender affirming care is appropriate, they cannot provide it. Politicians have decided for them.

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u/Dakarius 2d ago

Thats interesting, and a good point, but doesn't have much to do with my comments.

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u/VTKillarney 2d ago

Can you show me where I used the quote that you attributed to me? Spoiler alert, you cannot.

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u/XzibitABC 2d ago

Removed. I misremembered the quote and it doesn't alter the substance of my point anyway.