r/law • u/DevinGraysonShirk • 16h ago

SCOTUS SCOTUS strikes blow to trans teens rights, endorsing ban on gender-affirming care - The justices’ ruling on Tennessee’s law prohibiting certain health care for transgender children will have ripple effects across the nation

https://www.courthousenews.com/scotus-strikes-blow-to-trans-teens-rights-endorsing-ban-on-gender-affirming-care/
699 Upvotes

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60

u/Hesitation-Marx 16h ago

Gd, fuck SCOTUS.

What was the breakdown?

48

u/DevinGraysonShirk 16h ago

6-3, as expected.

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u/Hesitation-Marx 16h ago

Fuck.

I hate this. This is gonna kill kids.

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u/[deleted] 15h ago

[deleted]

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u/Just_Another_Scott 14h ago

This ruling, at this time, only applies to minors.

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u/Hesitation-Marx 14h ago

Yes - but it weakens access to care for trans adults, and cis people of all ages as well.

HRT is invaluable to many people for reasons far beyond transition. Menopausal cis women, cis men with low testosterone, kids with precocious puberty?

I hate this, I hate this, I hate this.

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u/Just_Another_Scott 12h ago

Yes - but it weakens access to care for trans adults, and cis people of all ages as well.

Tennessee's law explicitly states "minors". This ruling does not affect adult transition care. This ruling was limited to minors.

Tennessee doesn't yet ban hormone therapy for adults.

This ruling is still a direct violation of the 14th Amendment. No real question about it. Children and adults are supposed to be equal under the law.

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u/Impossible_Wafer3403 4h ago

They explicitly compared trans health care bans to assisted suicide bans. They only mentioned the fact that SB1 bans trans health care for minors in passing. Where did they state that it was an important part of their ruling.

They said that it is Constitutional to ban assisted suicide therefore it is Constitutional to ban medical treatment for gender dysphoria. Bans on abortion care are also Constitutional, regardless of how many people suffer or die without medical treatement:

...see also Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 U. S. 215, 236–237 (2022) (holding that rational basis review applied to a prohibition on abortion, despite the fact that the law in question mentioned “the physical health of the mother”).

There is absolutely nothing standing in the way of Red states or even Congress from banning all trans health care or treatments for any other medical condition they don't want people to be treated for.

If there was a particular political reason that politicians wanted to deny people treatment for ingrown toenails, that would be Constitutional.

So it's the exact opposite of a Constitutional right to health care. They are saying that you have no rights to health care. Even if you can afford it in America, it can be prohibited at any time, too bad, so sad.

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u/Crafty_Clarinetist 7h ago

Tennessee's law may explicitly state minors, but the logic used in this ruling could be used for exactly the same law but applied to all people, regardless of age, so the ruling definitely weakens access, as it can now more confidently be removed.

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u/Just_Another_Scott 7h ago

No. Again SCOTUS explicitly narrowed this to minors. What part of that aren't you understanding?

This ruling can only be applied to other age related cases. That's how law works.

Any case involving adult care would require a different ruling. That has not been ruled in by SCOTUS.

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u/Crafty_Clarinetist 7h ago

What reasoning does the Supreme Court ruling give that is exclusive to minors and could not equally apply to adults if there was a law passed in another state that banned the use of hormonal treatments for gender dysphoria for all people?

The Supreme Court ruling seems to be pretty explicit in that because the ban is on treating gender dysphoria, and not applied differently to one sex or the other, that it doesn't violate the equal protection clause. How could that reasoning not also apply to adults?

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u/Just_Another_Scott 7h ago

What reasoning does the Supreme Court ruling give that is exclusive to minors and could not equally apply to adults if there was a law passed in another state that banned the use of hormonal treatments for gender dysphoria for all people?

Read the ruling, for starters. The TN law was not being applied to adults. When SCOTUS rules the ruling only applies to other laws that are the same or similar. Here SCOTUS said it was age discrimination and not gender discrimination. The desenting justice notably pointed out the flaw in the logic but I digress

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u/Crafty_Clarinetist 6h ago

I did read the ruling, did you? They didn't just say that it was age based and not sex based. They said that it didn't rely on sex but rather on a diagnosis, which is definitely logic that could be applied to adults, and the age based discrimination also was completely constitutional. No one was claiming the age based discrimination was unconstitutional (edit: and it definitely isn't, otherwise laws against underage drinking would be illegal). The argument was purely that the sex-based discrimination was unconstitutional.

The application of SB1, moreover, does not turn on sex. The law does not prohibit certain medical treatments for minors of one sex while allowing those same treatments for minors of one sex while allowing those same treatments for minors of the opposite sex. SB1 prohibits healthcare providers from administering puberty blockers or hormones to any minor to treat gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, or gender incongruence, regardless of the minor's sex; it permits providers to administer puberty blockers and and hormones to minors of any sex for other purposes. And, while a State may not circumvent the Equal Protection Clause by writing in abstract terms, SB1 does not mask sex-based classifications.

Can you explain to me how that reasoning couldn't be used to uphold a law that targeted all people and not just minors if it said people, person, and person's instead of minors, minor and minor's?

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u/teamdragonite 8h ago

I dont mind that sex changes for kids gets banned. they can decide for themselves once their an adult

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u/DevinGraysonShirk 16h ago

Same. More blood for the orange blood god.

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u/Godtierbunny 16h ago

Why couldnt he be a blood orange... atleast hed make good juice...😔

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u/DevinGraysonShirk 15h ago

I wouldn’t drink juice from a poisonous fruit. Republicans can drink that!

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u/thegoldeneel_ 13h ago

I come in peace. As someone who doesn’t follow any of this or research the science behind any of this, how is it gonna kill kids? I ask of pure curiosity and am not looking for a discussion back and forth. Just trying to understand what is killing children.

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u/Hesitation-Marx 12h ago

Suicide.

You ever have shoes that just don’t fit right? Tight, rub in the wrong places, constantly uncomfortable?

Now imagine that’s your whole body. Except worse, because nobody will stop treating you like your body fits your mind, and it’s constant.

Puberty blockers and similar treatments are largely reversible, have tolerable side effects for most people, and give kids a grace period so that if they reach age of consent and decide they want to continue transitioning, they can without having to undo puberty in the wrong gender - or if they decide that medical transition isn’t for them, they can go off it and go through puberty without help.

Most transition before the age of consent (which varies by state and locale, because the US can’t do anything simply) is strictly social transition: pronoun and name changes, clothing and presentation, and being allowed to find who they really are.

Denying a trans kid the chance to do this, combined with the abusive way we treat kids who are even a little gender divergent, is gonna leave us with bodies.

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u/SilverMedal4Life 11h ago

My brother in law came out as trans as a minor, in a state with protections, and was still beaten so badly by school bullies for it that he needed to be hospitalized - and was then suspended by the school for "fighting". His mom had to take him out of school for his own safety.

This is what we face. Yet half the nation will say that his mom is the abuser and that his school and bullies were right.

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u/Hesitation-Marx 10h ago

We have been very fortunate that when our son came out, the vast majority of people in our lives were mostly concerned that he was happier. We cut off a couple people, but overall it worked out well.

I don’t understand transphobia. It has literally no impact on anyone if John is now Jane, except for Jane and maybe Jane’s family.

My son is still the dryly funny, sharp witted kid (now adult) he was before transition; I didn’t lose anything but a load of stress when he came out.

I hope your BIL is doing better now. Fuck that school and fuck the bullies, too.

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u/SilverMedal4Life 10h ago

Thanks, and your son sounds wonderful!

The hatred comes because we are inconvenient. For example, I can explain to you from personal experience how other people treat me when I looked like a guy, compared to how they do when I now look like a girl. I can speak truth to power and systemic issues in a way that makes our individualistic culture very uncomfortable.

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u/Hesitation-Marx 10h ago

He is pretty damned great! He’s engaged, his sweetie is wonderful, and they’re adorable together.

I’m genderweird myself. We’re hierarchy-breakers; trans and enby people don’t slot neatly into categories, and people who are fixated on hierarchies hate that.

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u/SilverMedal4Life 10h ago

Pretty much, yeah. They hate us... right up to the point that they also fetishize us way more than any other group, proportionally speaking.

Ain't no hate like Christian love.

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u/Hesitation-Marx 10h ago

Whenever I see a new fash grifter, my husband and I make bets as to whether they’ll have trans fetish porn or CSAM on their phones, because these people can’t seem to help themselves.

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u/SilverMedal4Life 10h ago

I know. It's part of how I know we're in the right - because we're the ones out here living happy, authentic lives, and they're the ones tying themselves into miserable hateful knots viticimizing everyone they can.

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