The Freedom From Religion Foundation lambastes today’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Tennessee’s cruel and unconstitutional ban on gender-affirming care for minors. This decision is a major blow to science-based medicine and the rights of parents and transgender youth.
In today’s 6-3 judgment written by Chief Justice John Roberts, the majority held in United States v. Skrmetti that states may prohibit gender-affirming medical care for minors without violating the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The extremist majority bought the state’s argument that its law (SB 1) does not discriminate based on sex, because it applies to all minors regardless of their sex assigned at birth — i.e., both males and females are prohibited from undergoing gender transition treatments.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor thoroughly ripped apart the majority’s transparently political ruling in a scathing dissent joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan:
Tennessee’s law expressly classifies on the basis of sex and transgender status, so the Constitution and settled precedent require the court to subject it to intermediate scrutiny. The majority contorts logic and precedent to say otherwise, inexplicably declaring it must uphold Tennessee’s categorical ban on lifesaving medical treatment so long as “‘any reasonably conceivable state of facts’” might justify it.
Thus, the majority subjects a law that plainly discriminates on the basis of sex to mere rational-basis review. By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.
Sotomayor read her dissent from the bench, calling out the conservative majority for “refus[ing] to call a spade a spade. Instead, it obfuscates a sex classification that is plain on the face of this statute, all to avoid the mere possibility that a different court could strike down SB 1, or categorical health care bans like it.” She lamented the decision’s “irrevocable damage to the Equal Protection Clause,” and its invitation for state legislatures “to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sex classifications in plain sight.” She concludes: “It also authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them. Because there is no constitutional justification for that result, I dissent.”
“This decision is a clear example of religious ideology permeating the law,” says FFRF Legal Director Patrick Elliott. “It undermines both parental rights and medical freedom, and signals a dangerous willingness by the court to allow theology to dictate constitutional rights.”
Measures such as Tennessee’s ban, and similar laws sweeping the country, aren’t driven by science or concern for children’s well-being, but by a theocratic agenda that seeks to impose narrow religious beliefs about gender and identity. These laws deny trans youth life-saving, evidence-based medical care and strip parents and doctors of the ability to make informed, compassionate decisions — all to appease Christian nationalist lawmakers and interest groups.
The plaintiffs, including a 16-year-old transgender girl, were receiving care with full medical oversight and informed parental consent. Now, they and thousands like them will be denied necessary treatment because of political interference driven by Christian nationalist lobbying groups such as Alliance Defending Freedom and the Heritage Foundation, which have been working to create model legislation and lobby politicians to ban transgender health care. The Southern Poverty Law Center has released a wealth of data demonstrating that much of the anti-gender-affirming-care “science” is actually being directly manipulated by the Christian nationalist movement.
“These bans on transgender health care are part of a broader, religiously motivated assault on bodily autonomy,” says FFRF Co-President Annie Laurie Gaylor. “The Supreme Court needs to quit practicing medicine without a license. Anyone who values personal freedom should be deeply alarmed by this decision.”
Despite the hostile narrative surrounding transgender health care that the Supreme Court is furthering in its decision, the gender-affirming-care model is safe, effective and supported by every major medical organization, including the American Medical Association, the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. These secular scientific organizations prioritize the safety and health of patients, not religious dogma.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation stands firmly with the transgender community, with parents, and with the medical professionals who follow science and ethics — not narrow sectarian belief — in providing care. FFRF will continue to educate about the harm these theocratic assaults are doing to civil liberties, bodily autonomy and the wall of separation between religion and government.
The Freedom From Religion Foundation is a U.S.-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting the constitutional principle of separation between state and church and educating the public on matters of nontheism. With more than 42,000 members, FFRF advocates for freethinkers’ rights. For more information, visit ffrf.org.
