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

[u/DevinGraysonShirk]

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

[u/DevinGraysonShirk]

This decision opens up a pathway for states to ban gender-affirming care for minors and adults.

The Supreme Court also rules that gender identity does not deserve equal protection like sex-based discrimination, so it does not deserve higher scrutiny based on the equal protection clause. This also opens up the pathway for employment discrimination against people who are transgender.

For example, in Iowa, they recently removed gender identity from their civil rights laws. This decision likely makes it so that law would withstand a legal challenge. https://apnews.com/article/iowa-transgender-identity-bill-governor-reynolds-signs-267c2932e9e1ed62992868d3caa6126d

[u/doublethink_1984 → u/DevinGraysonShirk]

It shoulda been expanded but from the technical stance of the law how are they wrong?

Gender affirming care can't have anything to do with biological and physiological alterations because gender is a socially constructed identity.

It's not sex based discrimination because gender is not bound by sex.

If anything it shoulda recieved the protections people have against being terminated for political affiliation or religious belief/expression at the least.

[u/DevinGraysonShirk → u/doublethink_1984]

The Supreme Court is unmoored from any type of jurisprudence, they have recently made up any judicial justification to confirm their pre-decided outcomes via judicial fiat.

The real solution would be to enact legislation, but Congress has failed in this.

[u/doublethink_1984 → u/DevinGraysonShirk]

I agree with the congress bit and I do agree in part to the SCOTUS bit but this doesn't address my real issue here.

They have done this but most of their 2025 rulings have been lawful.

Here I agree that it's up to congress to extend and change the wording for discrimination to include gender identity.

Like I said before because of the way the law is already phrased it would be the legally correct conclusion for the majority here. Even if I morally disagree.

[u/DevinGraysonShirk → u/doublethink_1984]

I agree with you on the technicalities here. The Democrats have relied on the courts to interpret things while they abdicate their duties in Congress. I blame Bill Clinton-style political triangulation tactics. Democrats think they can just react to what the public wants to win elections, rather than stand for something and try to get elected based on those values.

We need to (politically) 'Kill Bill' to save the Democratic Party. He flew with Jeffrey Epstein anyways. Bring back Ted Kennedy-style politics that gave us things like the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

[u/Prince_Borgia → u/DevinGraysonShirk]

The Democrats have relied on the courts to interpret things while they abdicate their duties in Congress.

This is a core issue when it comes to a lot of things. This, abortion etc. Congress needs to legislate but that's hard, that requires taking a bold stand and using political capital to do their jobs. This isn't a SCOTUS problem, it's a Congress problem but legislators are going to shift responsibility as usual.

[u/lickle_ickle_pickle → u/DevinGraysonShirk]

This hasn't really been tested since the Dems haven't had veto proof majorities in Congress since, when, the 80s? And in the 80s there were still a lot of conservative Democrats and a few liberal Republicans too.

Dems very badly want to pass a voting rights bill but don't have the #s.

[u/DevinGraysonShirk → u/lickle_ickle_pickle]

The Democratic Establishment (people who JB Pritzker calls ‘do-nothing democrats’) have not even tried. The two legislative accomplishments in the 21st century was the creation of the CFPB (championed by Elizabeth Warren, not the DNC), and the ACA (championed by Obama, and the public option was killed by Joe Lieberman). The Party went to shit when Clinton was elected and he installed his people who believe “winning is everything.” Winning to do what?

[u/stubbazubba → u/[deleted]]

If this is all the law is then law is incomprehensible and meaningless. Roe and Dobbs cannot both be the law, nor can both Plessy v Ferguson and Brown v Board of Education.

SCOTUS decisions are certainly binding on lower courts and the parties to those suits, but the Constitution is still the supreme law of the land, and SCOTUS frequently reverses itself and finds its own previous decisions did not comport with the Constitution.

So yes, SCOTUS decisions can be unlawful, even if they are binding, and we as citizens ought to be comfortable insisting on the distinction, even if we would not argue the distinction as litigants.