
Court is now a ‘willing participant in a partisan project targeting transgender people’
A law professor at the University of Michigan contends the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on “gender-affirming” care for minors is “obviously discriminat[ory]” … and could apply to adults at some point.
On June 18, the SCOTUS ruled 6-3 in United States v. Skrmetti that the Volunteer State can prohibit gender-affirming care for non-adults (which includes “hormone therapy” and puberty blockers), and that such a ban “is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.”
Professor Leah Litman (pictured) told The Advocate last week she believes the three dissenting justices — Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson — were correct in their take.
Litman said Skrmetti “crystallizes” the fact that the SCOTUS conservative majority “is no longer operating as a neutral arbiter of law but as a willing participant in a partisan project targeting transgender people and other vulnerable groups.”
She said the majority decision “collapses under scrutiny: the very same treatments remain legal for cisgender minors with other conditions, such as precocious puberty, but are banned when prescribed for gender dysphoria.”
A “cis girl […] can get the puberty blockers and the hormones, but the trans boy can’t,” Litman added. “So that’s obviously discrimination on the basis of gender identity.”
Litman further claimed Skrmetti “opens up” the possibility of states banning gender-affirming procedures for adults — since Justice Clarence Thomas had invoked “irreversible risks and other things.”
MORE: Fire professors who oppose ‘gender-affirming care,’ Harvard faculty chair says
The conservative bloc’s “motivations” for the decision were due to “long-standing discomfort with gender nonconformity, susceptibility to misinformation,” and “‘patriarchal commitments’ that lead to moral panic over social change,” Litman continued.
(Chief Justice Roberts, in his writing of the court’s decision, notes numerous sources regarding the “limited” effectiveness of “sex transition treatments.”)
She also said it is a “fact” that the SCOTUS conservatives “ignore facts when they conflict with the political outcomes they seek,” and claimed Skrmetti is a “pivotal moment” as it demonstrates “how far the majority is willing to go without being held accountable.”
Litman concluded by saying if Democrats regain power they should force the GOP to vote against the so-called “Equality Act,” which “prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.”
“Also kind of like, fuck them, you know?” she said.
Litman is author of the recent book “Lawless: How the Supreme Court Runs on Conservative Grievance, Fringe Theories, and Bad Vibes,” which posits the SCOTUS conservatives “routinely dispense with precedent and consistency in favor of ‘legal-ish’ reasoning that advances Republican priorities under the guise of constitutional interpretation.”
MORE: Med journal publishes ‘non-binary’ professor’s poem about ‘gender-affirming’ hysterectomy
IMAGE CAPTION & CREDIT: Professor Leah Litman/University of Michigan
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