US Supreme Court thread - United States v Skrmetti December 4th

[fromorbit]

Big case on Wednesday. In theory it might be a big win for reality, but we can't underestimate the power of the idea of gender stereotypes have in the US and the money involved from the gender industry.

Decent Economist article covers the implications:

A big transgender-rights case heads to America’s Supreme Court
The justices take on paediatric gender medicine
A case to be heard by the Supreme Court on December 4th is set to reignite debate about one of the election’s most controversial issues: the rights of transgender people, and specifically the medical transitioning of minors. In 2023, Tennessee enacted Senate Bill 1 (SB1), which bans puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery for minors who identify as trans. It is one of 26 states that have done so. Now, in United States v Skrmetti, the federal government, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is suing Tennessee on behalf of the parents of three teenagers, claiming the ban violates the equal-protection clause of the constitution’s 14th Amendment.
https://archive.is/1ZIx0

The deeper story behind the case.

WoLF Files to SCOTUS in US v. Skrmetti to Protect Children from “Gender” Medicine
Today, WoLF filed an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in U.S. v. Skrmetti, defending laws that ban the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and genital surgeries on minors for so-called “gender affirmation.”

WoLF argues that these procedures not only cause permanent harm, but also stem from an ideological movement that seeks to erase biological reality to the detriment of society’s most vulnerable—children, women, and LGB individuals. As this case heads to the Nation’s highest court, the stakes for children’s futures have never been higher.
https://womensliberationfront.org/news/wolf-files-to-scotus-in-us-v-skrmetti-to-protect-children-from-gender-medicine

Who’s Who in US v. Skrmetti
Drugged kids, a tacky gynecologist, and Miss Idaho
American lawsuits aren’t about ideas. They’re about people.
You might think Skrmetti, the case that’s scheduled for oral argument before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, is about discrimination or pediatric gender medicine (PGM). But it’s actually about three kids who want to be the opposite sex, their eager moms, and a gynecologist whose YouTube channel is called Crotch Talk.
These plaintiffs are represented by the voluble trans activist Chase Strangio, who has joined forces with her friend Elizabeth Prelogar, the US Solicitor General, to battle the Attorney General of Tennessee, Jonathan Skrmetti, over whether his state’s ban on PGM violates the US Constitution.

https://badfacts.substack.com/p/whos-who-in-us-v-skrmetti

On the American Academy of Pediatrics' Faulty Brief to the Supreme Court About Gender-Care Bans
My breakdown of the amicus, or "friend-of-the-court", brief that the AAP and a roster of other medical societies submitted to the high court, which is riddled with flaws and remarkable omissions.

https://benryan.substack.com/p/on-the-american-academy-of-pediatrics

That is straight to the point, isn’t it. And still I doubt it will sink in.

Was it mentioned that these children are coached to say they feel suicidal to strong arm their parents. Also, like gender dysphoria probably is, suicidality is socially contagious, which is why, except in the field of gender, responsible parties are very careful about how they talk about it. In the field of gender, sense goes out the window and suicide is talked about as blithely as if it were aspirational.

The Internet is will up with snippets of the hearing. For example here's one on youtube:

Not very long, under 5 minutes, but really interesting.

This, from the New York Times, is a very informative discussion about how things have been going in the court:

35 minutes long but none of it is filler (you can skip the last 3 minutes). The NYT seem to be waking up to the value in trying to be objective in some respects.

It’s so strange listening to the arguments being discussed in the US Supreme Court hearing because they sound behind the times in comparison to how the discourse has moved on in Europe and given how the arguments being used by the ACLU have been shown to be unproven in various academic studies and judicial hearings here.

Late to the party.

That video of Chase Strangio doing the rounds on Twitter is deeply disturbing. It also sounds like testosterone has had zero effect on Chase's vocal chords. You see a male presenting person and then you hear a woman's voice. Very odd.

I also think the legal argument they're making is incredibly weak. They're effectively arguing that anyone should be able to have any medical treatment they want, regardless of whether it is actually a medically appropriate course of treatment for them.

"Cis kids are allowed puberty blockers so not letting trans kids have them is discrimination."

What?

Doctors don't just hand out puberty blockers willy nilly to "cis kids". "Cis kids" are, occasionally, prescribed puberty blockers at a young age to prevent them from going through precocious puberty. They aren't prescribed these drugs if they are not experiencing precocious puberty.

For what it's worth, I think that if a four year old girl who thinks she's a boy happens to be experiencing precocious puberty, she should be given puberty blockers. But she should only be given them for the same reason and following the same medical guidelines as a girl of the same age who doesn't believe she is a boy.

It's not discrimination on grounds of gender identity. It's discrimination on grounds of not having a medical condition which justifies the use of the drugs.

Which is the same principle that should apply to all prescription drugs.

Regarding the suicide claim:

A while back I contacted LYBT Youth Scotland about a cartoon image of a suicide method in their presentation on the page ‘why support for trans youth matters’.

I said that it was ‘dangerous and suggestive to young people whose parents may not support them. This literature could give them that idea that this is what they are destined to do. It is also beyond hurtful to say that it is the parents fault that the young person took their own life by this method. It is very worse form of emotional blackmail. If you must talk about suicide, I suggest your organisation contacts the Samaritans for guidance. They have strict guidelines on how to talk about this sensitive subject. I think they too will be horrified at the cartoon trivialisation and suggestive nature’.

The picture in question was a cartoon noose.
In fairness, although blaming an uninvited member of the public for sharing the image in one of their talks then the Trans Student Educational Resources (TSER) for producing the image, Dr Mhairi Crawford replied and understood what I was saying and said they’d take it down.

The ‘Why support for trans youth matters’ poster/infographic is still up on the Scottish Government website. The image is not as cartoony and the suicide method has now been changed to pills. Still irresponsible.

The analogy to someone being treated for an illness doesn’t really work though.

Say someone has to have a limb amputated due to a serious disease in that limb. Can someone else without any disease in that limb also have the same right to have their limb amputated? For reasons of affinity/ identity/ body image of not having that limb. Feelings rather than any physical disease or illness in other words.

They are a false equivalence.

Thank you - that was a really interesting piece.

I was pleasantly surprised listening to it. I thought they made a proper effort to represent the flow of arguments and their apparent strengths.

I listened to both of those too, thank you!

What did people think of the sex discrimination argument? Seemed to me like it was a bit daft (both natal boys and natal girls are banned from receiving transition interventions and neither natal boys nor natal girls are banned from receiving intervention due to delayed or precocious puberty).

I thought (with my extremely limited background knowledge) that parental rights (to consent or refuse) would’ve been a more sound argument (but presumably Strange Chasio (sic) wouldn’t want parents to be able to prevent paediatric transition)?

I think it’s weird for a stalwart TRA who believes in gender over sex (i.e. Strangio) to be making an argument based on the immutability of sex categories - reminds me of the Scottish govt barrister in the Supreme Court, arguing that there were only ‘2 genders’ to be considered in law, when up until that point ScotGov was all in on accommodating as many genders as could be imagined.

It feels slippery and not a very honest representation of the circumstances - feels like Strangio et al would plead any argument they could in court to win (whether they believed the argument or not) and that they would immediately argue the opposite in a future case if it got them what they wanted legally.

TRAs demanding drugs designed for the opposite sex are like haemophiliacs demanding blood thinners because they identify as someone prone to blood clots. It's not discrimination to deny what isn't safe for their bodies just because people with completely different bodies can have them.

That’s a very good analogy. The puberty blockers appear to prevent some mental maturation beyond stunting normal development. And, then if girls are given testosterone, it can actively damage a body which is not designed for the amount given.

Fab analogy.

Hilariously bad Guardian article on the case gets the JKR treatment

Strangio's terrible arguments are likely to haunt the TAs. More cases going to come to Supreme Court and they have damaged their position already.

Wow. It is indeed hilariously bad.

So much so that I should imagine that will get a few raised eyebrows from otherwise "neutral" Observer readers in the UK. I wonder if it made it in to the print version. Hope so.

Even the headline is hilariously bad.

Public opinion on irrerversible medical interventions for children is shifting on both sides of the Atlantic. Yet this article is banging the drum at full volume for the continuation of these medical experiments. You can't get much more politicised than that.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/dec/06/transgender-children-politics

🎯

"How did the political problem we created to make money become so politicized?!"

Tennessee Attorney General Skrmetti was a guest on Megyn Kelly to discuss this case:

Mentioning Kelly on a thread often attracts some special posts. Let's see if it happens here.

Thanks for the link - I'll have a look at that now.

Bloody hell Sotomayer there stating that there are 'millions' of children benefiting from this care but only some side effects, like asprin. Nope, it's the other way around. There's literally no benefit and horrendous side effects for these experiments on children. How did she get away with stating such a blatant untruth?

I'm shocked they can be so overtly politically partisan. Judges in this country would have their jobs at risk for that, surely?

Unfortunately the political climate in the US for the past few decades has very much entrenched a tribalism here where there are Our Good Justices and Their Bad Justices. It's embarrassing for me as someone not on the right side of the spectrum to see Alito, Kavanaugh, and Barrett asking reasonable questions while Sotomayor and Jackson say ridiculous things. But they're so captured and everything's so polarized that you'd think they were up for elected office.

The polarisation is so strong, you can get the impression there are two parallel trials going on at the same time, each with its own set of justices and its own set of facts.