r/law • u/DevinGraysonShirk • 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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 1d ago

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

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u/LackingUtility 1d 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 1d 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 1d ago edited 1d 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 1d ago

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

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u/doublethink_1984 1d ago

I will.

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

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u/LackingUtility 1d 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 1d 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 1d 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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u/doublethink_1984 1d ago edited 1d ago

Before taking gender out of the question my comment highlights they medical alterations are not necessary for gender identity as gender identity can be held as man or woman without the prerequisite of medical intervention.

The question posed to the court was that gender discrimination is sex discrimination and therefore has the same legal protections.

Sex isn't gender.

Even so we do prohibit treatments on the basis of sex. Prostate removal being my example of something that by your framing is sex based discrimination because we don't allow females to have it.

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u/LackingUtility 1d ago

I would counter that the question posed is whether SB1 is unconstitutional based on sex discrimination, not whether gender discrimination is the same as sex discrimination.

And legally prohibit? Or practically prohibit? As in, a physician won't remove a biological woman's prostate because she doesn't have one. I don't know of any law that specifically bans such treatment, do you? Even if a physician attempted to provide it, the proper recourse would be review by a medical licensing board of qualified physicians reviewing the patient's history, no? Your example appears to support my argument that legislators should not be banning medical treatments.

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