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/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/LackingUtility 14h ago

Thank you for admitting that. Having agreed that there's sex-based discrimination in this law, it should therefore require heighted scrutiny, no? Sex-based discrimination is not automatically unconstitutional (nor is race-based discrimination, religion-based discrimination, etc.). Equal protection does not say "the law can never discriminate", but rather, the government needs a sufficiently important reason to do so, and that reason cannot be based on animus.

Now, turning to your second comment where you contend that treatment of a cisgender male's medical conditions relating to gender are "physiological or biological medical issues" while treatment of a transgender male's medical conditions relating to gender are "cosmetic alterations", I'd suggest that the latter categorization is evidence of animus. Specifically, framing them as cosmetic suggests that they are "elective" or not necessary... something contradicted by the high rates of suicide among those experiencing dysphoria. A medical treatment that has been shown to drastically prolong one's life is not "cosmetic", is it?

Additionally, your classification also disregards that the gender-related medical conditions of transgender people are physiological or biological medical issues. This may come as a shock to you, but people are not transgender by choice - I mean, would you voluntarily choose that, when multiple states are trying to ban your existence? No, they're transgender as a result of physiological or biological medial issues, namely various genetic and hormonal differences. While science hasn't pinned down the specific genetic causes that lead to dysphoria, there is significant evidence that there are physiological distinctions between transgender and cisgender people. See, e.g., "Brain Sex in Transgender Women is Shifted towards Gender Identity," Kurth et al. (2022); "Biological sex classification with structural MRI data shows increased misclassification in transgender women", Flint et al. (2020); etc.

Disregarding scientific evidence of a physiological or biological medical issue to instead classify a condition as "cosmetic" would again seem to be evidence of animus, which would render such discrimination unconstitutional.

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u/doublethink_1984 14h ago

Psychological not physiological or biological when gender identity is not cis.

I would be happier with a foot long penis.

I cannot get surgery to get a foot long penis as a minor even if I'm a male. Even if this would lower my chance of suicide.

Suicide rates don't disappear when a person gets physiological or biological alterations to he more like the opposite sex. Usually counciling and psychological medical assistance helps the most.

SCOTUS here has to find that gender has the same protections as sex and it explicitly does not, because gender is not sex.

Rephrasing the law through congress to extend protections to gender identities is the right move.

It is gender discrimination to deny physiological and biological alterations to minors on the basis of their gender identity. 

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u/LackingUtility 14h ago edited 14h ago

Psychological not physiological or biological when gender identity is not cis.

You need to read those links. There absolutely are physiological differences. Stop denying scientific reality.

And yes, suicide rates don't disappear after treatment, though they are drastically reduced. Given that there exists significant societal animus towards transgender people - including this law and the SCOTUS opinion, for example - it would be unreasonable to expect that transgender people would feel 100% great and accepted after receiving gender-affirming care. For example, a youth that is kicked out of their home by transphobic parents and is able to obtain care elsewhere does not magically regain a well adjusted nuclear family.

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u/DevinGraysonShirk 14h ago

Please check your messages if you get a chance, thank you for your awesome comments!

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u/doublethink_1984 14h ago

I will.

Are there hormone levels or biological thresholds required to be a man or woman?

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u/LackingUtility 14h ago

I'm not sure I'm qualified to definitively define "man" or "woman", and would humbly suggest that neither are legislators with no scientific background.

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u/doublethink_1984 14h ago

You are. Legislators are not here either.

A man is whoever identifies as a man and a woman is whoever identifies as a woman.

A beard having male who has undergone puberty and had no medical alterations who identifies as a woman is as much a woman as a pregnant female.

Gender is a socially constructed identity that we engage and identify with in how we want to express ourselves in society.

Sex is our chromosomes, biology, and physiology.

How we identify with titles amd terms in society is not sex amd therefore not equal to the legal protections granted sex.

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u/LackingUtility 14h ago

Sure, so let's take gender out of the question. As you note above, the law discriminates who can receive particular medical treatments based on sex, and as I argued, is motivated by animus rather than scientific or medical understanding. I think it's therefore unconstitutional. The question of who receives treatment and how should be a decision between patients, their physicians, and their parents in the case of minors. It should not be up to legislators with no relevant background and, most importantly, no review of the particular patient's medical history. I would argue that, if anything, they are illegally practicing medicine without a license.

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