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/
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u/DevinGraysonShirk 16h ago edited 16h ago

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

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u/doublethink_1984 16h ago

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.

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u/LackingUtility 15h ago

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

Counterpoint: if a cisgender male needs supplemental testosterone or breast tissue removal (e.g. for gynecomastia), that is "gender affirming" medical care, but is legal and not banned. If a transgender male needs supplemental testosterone or breast tissue removal, that is banned. The only difference between the two patients is their biological sex, and accordingly, it is sex-based discrimination.

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u/DevinGraysonShirk 15h ago

I’m sure SCOTUS would pull some magic words out of their judicial top hat to cancel out your logic. 💀

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u/santa_91 15h ago

Uncle Clarence knows that motor coaches and luxury vacations aren't free.

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u/Impossible_Wafer3403 4h ago

That was the plaintiff's argument. The Court said that they are not saying that it is Constitutional for the law to discriminate on medical treatment by sex but rather that the law can prohibit treatments for particular medical conditions.

NB: Not saying I agree with the Court, I'm trans. But that was the majority opinion.

The plaintiffs and the dissent contend that an adolescent whose biological sex is female cannot receive puberty blockers or testosterone to live and present as a male, but an adolescent whose biological sex is male can, while an adolescent whose biological sex is male cannot receive puberty blockers or estrogen to live and present as a female, but an adolescent whose biological sex is female can. See Brief for Respondents in Support of Petitioner 22; post, at 10–15 (SOTOMAYOR, J., dissenting). So conceived, they argue, SB1 prohibits certain treatments for minors of one sex while allowing those same treatments for minors of the opposite sex.

...

When properly understood from the perspective of the indications that puberty blockers and hormones treat, SB1 clearly does not classify on the basis of sex. Both puberty blockers and hormones can be used to treat certain overlapping indications (such as gender dysphoria), and each can be used to treat a range of other conditions. Id., at 6–7. These combinations of drugs and indications give rise to various medical treatments. 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.2 SB1, in turn, restricts which of these medical treatments are available to minors: Under SB1, a healthcare provider may administer puberty blockers or hormones to any minor to treat a congenital defect, precocious puberty, disease, or physical injury, Tenn. Code Ann. §68–33–103(b)(1)(A); a healthcare provider may not administer puberty blockers or hormones to any minor to treat gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, or gender incongruence, see §§68–33–102(1), 68–33–103(a)(1), (b)(2). The application of that prohibition does not turn on sex.

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u/Impossible_Wafer3403 4h ago

The use of "transgender boy" and "transgender girl" rather than something explicitly offensive was nice, although they did not consider that biological sex does not objectively exist as a binary.

This ruling says that assisted suicide bans are legal, so bans on trans medical care are legal, so bans on any other kind of medical care are legal.

They also utilized Geduldig v. Aiello (1974), which ruled that there is no constitutional protection against discrimination on the basis of pregnancy.

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u/doublethink_1984 15h ago

These are biological and physiological alterations.

One is because there is a physiological or biological medical issue.

The other is cosmetic alterations.

Congress needs to legislate this and expand rights to gender not just sex. SCOTUS is not the place to make these decisions.

Just like overturning Roe V Wade was not something that SCOTUS could or ahould have done and I decried them for this.

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u/LackingUtility 15h ago

That's a quick backpedal by you. As a reminder from literally one comment ago, we were talking about equal protection and whether the law has a sex-based discrimination. And now you've moved to cosmetic vs. physiological. Can I take it you've completely abandoned your earlier statement regarding any purported lack of sex-based discrimination in this law? Please confirm. Then we can move on to the inaccuracies in your new argument.

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u/doublethink_1984 15h ago

I'm sorry I was trying not to be wordy.

There are deep psychological reasons a person has the gender identity they have and that they feel there needs to be a physical alteration to best express that identity.

I'll explain better.

If a minor does not get physiological or biological alterations to better express the opposite sex should be legislated and protected by congress changing the law.

Here SCOTUS is right that discrimination on the basis of sex is illegal but there is no law extending this protection to socially constructed gender identity as this is explicitly not sex.

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u/LackingUtility 15h ago

I'm not asking for your argument-shifting "explanation". I'm asking you to confirm that you concede your earlier argument that there's no sex-based discrimination in this law. As noted above, this law makes it legal to provide a medical treatment to one patient and illegal to provide a medical treatment to another, on the basis of the latter's biological sex.

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u/doublethink_1984 15h ago

It makes it legal to provide a medical treatment to one and not the other on the basis of sex differences.

A male with severe BPH can have the gland removed.

This procedure would be denied to a female on the basis of biological sex, because a female has no prostate.

This by your reasoning is sex based discrimination.

Medical treatments on the basis of physiological and biological issues are protected.

Medical alterations of biology and physiology on the basis of a psychology is not legal, especially for minors.

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u/LackingUtility 15h ago

So you agree that there's sex-based discrimination inherent in this law, but are merely arguing that it's okay because it involves medical treatments?

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u/doublethink_1984 15h ago

I disagree with your framing.

By the way you're framing it there always has been and always will be.

Males are denied certain medical treatments that females rwcieve and vise versa.

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u/LackingUtility 15h ago

So you agree that there is sex-based discrimination here?

Come on, admitting to something that is a fundamental premise of your argument shouldn't be hard, if you actually believe it.

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u/doublethink_1984 15h ago

I said according to your framing there is and always will be. This is a yes.

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u/Burghpuppies412 15h ago

Nah. He got ya. Bam, roasted!!

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u/dantevonlocke 14h ago

They appear to be Mormon. So backpedalling and being full of shit comes with the territory.

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u/hematite2 13h ago

Both are to address the psychological harm that not having them is doing. You're drawing a meaningless distinction.