The United States Supreme Court is debating whether Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1 — which forbids certain sorts of medical treatments for kids diagnosed with gender dysphoria—is constitutional. On Wednesday, dozens of protestors from both sides of the issue gathered outside the courthouse in Washington, D.C. to support their cause.
One protester, Ash Orr, a West Virginia native and trans activist, took his prescription testosterone outside the Supreme Court as the justices heard oral arguments for and against Tennessee’s restriction on gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
“Even though inside that building, our bodily autonomy was being debated, at that time, we were in control,” Orr, 34, said of his act of protest against the ban. “We were in control of our decisions, of our body, of doing what’s best for us as trans individuals.”
As the court considers whether to uphold or overturn the ban, Orr thought on his younger self and the value of having access to “lifesaving” care. Orr, who claims to have been closeted in his youth, believes that having access to gender-affirming care as an adult, as well as being supported by an open and affirming community, has allowed him to “thrive.”
“I was very suicidal when I was younger because I felt trapped in my body,” Orr told me. “I didn’t have the terminology or resources to communicate how I was feeling and what aid I needed, which led to me attempting suicide at a young age.
And I believe that if I had had access to this health care as a child, I would have faced less challenges. I don’t think people realise that we should all have the opportunity to choose what is best for our lives.
The Department of Justice filed the lawsuit against Tennessee, but it is being spearheaded by a 15-year-old transgender girl from Nashville and her parents. The law restricts access to puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender transition procedures. However, it provides non-transgender minors with the same or equivalent medical procedures.
The Department of Justice and the Nashville family argue that Tennessee’s prohibitions on gender-affirming care violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee by specifically discriminating against transgender children.
Tennessee officials argue that the constitution gives states “the right and responsibility to protect children, regulate the medical profession, and independently evaluate the evidence of the risks and benefits of practices to be regulated,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in an online statement about the Supreme Court arguments.
“Our arguments were ultimately about constitutional clarity and common sense,” explained Attorney General Skrmetti. “We cannot allow ideology to override medical evidence at the expense of our right to self-government and our duty to protect our children.”
Puberty blockers prevent the development of some physical traits, such as breast and facial hair growth, as well as vocal alterations. When blockers are removed, health professionals tell ABC News that puberty continues with little to no known negative effects.
Teens who receive hormone therapy take either oestrogen or testosterone, depending on their gender identification. Changes in voice and body hair caused by hormone therapy occur slowly and are partially reversible, according to specialists.
According to ABC News, procedures for people under the age of 18 are extremely unusual and are only evaluated on an individual case basis.
Transgender people — who account for less than 1% of Americans over the age of 13, according to UCLA’s research organisation, the Williams Institute — have been the target of Republican-backed legislation in dozens of states around the country.
Dozens of bans have been enacted, banning changes to gender markers on IDs, transgender bathroom use, gender-affirming care bans, and more.
According to the LGBTQ legislation tracker Movement Advancement Project, at least 24 states currently prohibit various sorts of medical gender-affirming care for kids. Two other states outright prohibit procedures for transgender adolescents.
According to medical organisations such as the American Academy of Paediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, and others, gender-affirming care is safe, effective, useful, and may be medically essential for certain transgender adolescents.
They contend that limitations on individualised, age-appropriate gender-affirming care violate a family’s freedom to make medical decisions with their doctors.
Critics of gender-affirming youth care argue that families should wait until their children are older to make such decisions. Tennessee claimed to the Supreme Court that the statute is “protecting children” from “irreversible and unproven gender transition procedures.”
“Tennessee’s General Assembly reviewed the medical evidence, as well as the evidence-based decisions of European countries that restricted these procedures, and ultimately passed this bipartisan law prohibiting irreversible medical interventions,” according to Skrmetti. “The plaintiffs in this case are asking the Court to take the power to regulate the practice of medicine away from the people’s elected representatives and vest it in unaccountable judges.”
Montana State Representative Zooey Zephyr, the state’s first openly transgender lawmaker, was at the Supreme Court denouncing Tennessee’s ban.
She said being outside the Supreme Court reminded her of the lengthy history of the fight for LGBTQ civil rights, from the Stonewall Uprisings to pro-marriage equality marches.
“You have moments of adversity, such as Stonewall, but you also have moments when the community comes together. If you look at images from the Stonewall Riots the next day, you’ll see LGBTQ individuals standing arm in arm, smiling, and pleased that they stood for and for one another,” Zephyr explained.
She elaborated: “the people at that rally know what’s at stake, and they know the type of court that is hearing this case, but the people I saw down there yesterday were also carving out space for one another and surrounding ourselves with other queer people and finding joy in that community.”
Zephyr was censured and excluded from the House floor during her first term for encouraging demonstrators after appealing with legislators to vote against a gender-affirming care prohibition for transgender minors, which they eventually passed. She claims she recently collaborated with Republican legislators in her state to defeat a transgender toilet ban in the state House and Senate.
She contends that anti-transgender rhetoric and laws have served as a diversion from the difficulties confronting ordinary Americans: “Leave trans people alone, let us live our lives, and let our representatives get back to trying to make our states better places for all of us.”