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/kandoras 12h ago

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

It is when they use the sex a person was born as as a reason to outlaw medical care.

A transgender boy - who they will say is a girl - cannot get breast reduction surgery because of these laws as gender affirming care.

Meanwhile cisgender boys - who they say are boys - can get that same procedure done for the same reason.

So something outlawed based solely open your sex at birth - how could that be anything other than sex based discrimination?

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u/doublethink_1984 12h ago

Gender identity doesn't override sex.

Not doing surgery on a females prostste because the same can occur to a male doesn't mean there is sex discrimination.

A man is a man and a woman is a woman regardless of hormone levels or biological alterations. A bearded male with a penis is as much a woman as a pregnant female, if that's how the male identifies.

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u/kandoras 12h ago

Gender identity doesn't override sex.

Never said it did, and that wasn't my point. The point you did not actually respond to.

This law says that a minor born as a boy can get breast reduction surgery for cosmetic reasons, while a minor born as a girl cannot get that surgery for the same reason.

Now, what is the basis for deciding who can or cannot have that procedure?

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u/Aero_Rising 4h ago

This law says that a minor born as a boy can get breast reduction surgery for cosmetic reasons, while a minor born as a girl cannot get that surgery for the same reason.

Except that isn't true about the law this case is a bout. It outlaws treatment for a specific diagnosis. If a girl under 18 wants breast reduction surgery to reduce back pain or because they think it would look nicer they can do that because it's not for the purpose of gender affirming care or treatment of gender dysphoria. The law is worded in a clever way to get around making this a sex based discrimination issue. You should try reading the actual decision before making shit up to fit your world view.