WASHINGTON (Gray DC) – The Supreme Court is weighing the future of gender affirming care for minors after hearing arguments in U.S. v Skrmetti.
The advocates and those against gender affirming care for kids packed the front steps of the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
Transgender advocates said gender affirming care for minors is necessary healthcare. The state of Tennessee disagrees.
Tennessee law says it’s legal to give a boy testosterone and a girl estrogen. Doing the opposite, is illegal. The ACLU said the states ban on gender affirming care is illegal because it’s basing healthcare on gender and not medical necessity.
A lawyer and spokesperson for the ACLU said there’s a lot of misinformation about the treatments.
“When we talk about pubical blockers, they are reversable,” Ethan Rice, ACLU spokesperson said. “The point is to delay puberty until the appropriate time.”
Rice also said this legal fight is about kids being themselves physically and mentally.
“Gender affirming care means these youth can thrive,” Rice said. “They do better in school. Studies say if you call people the correct pronouns, it improves their outcomes incredibly.”
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is named on the lawsuit and feels good about the arguments made in front of the justices.
“When you are talking about kids stopping from taking hormone treatments, it means boys are being stopped from taking different treatments than girls,” the attorney general said. “The bodies are different they just are. The law is aimed at stopping the harm and that means a different physiological component because boys and girls are different.”
It’s not just Tennessee, half the country including Alabama have banned gender affirming care. Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall believes states should use counselors who can help kids wanting to transition, without medical intervention.
Attorney General Steve Marshall: “I think everyone ought to accept is that medical decisions and care should be decided by what research shows and what doctors believe,” Marshall said. “Not what lawyers and government officials want to do for their own political agendas.”
During the hearing, the justices asked questions about the medical necessity and long-term effects.
“Every study shows very little benefit at most or no benefit at all for the interventions for kids,” Skrimetti said. “The risks are huge and they could lose fertility for the rest of their lives. All kinds of serious consequences.”
Skrmetti hopes the court rules in favor of allowing the states to make the law – so they can adjust accordingly as new evidence in this emerging conversation comes in.
Rice hopes the justices will allow trans kids to have the freedom to become the people they want to be.
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