The Court's decision, expected by the end of June, could have serious consequences, with nearly half of American states having enacted laws prohibiting treatment for minors who do not identify with their birth gender.
The United States Supreme Court with a conservative majority is delving into an issue that is straining American society on Wednesday, the access of minors to medical treatments to change their gender. The subject is all the more sensitive in view of the inauguration on January 20 of Donald Trump, who has hammered home his intention to reverse a series of achievements obtained by transgender people.
The Court's decision, expected by the end of June, could have serious consequences, with nearly half of American states having enacted laws prohibiting treatment for minors who do not identify with their birth gender. Of the 1.6 million people who identify as transgender in the United States, more than 300,000 are aged 13 to 17, more than a third of whom live in one of these states, according to a study by the Williams Institute, a think tank of the UCLA University.
The character «discriminatory» of the law
At issue before the Court on Wednesday is a law adopted in 2023 by the state of Tennessee (south), governed by Republicans, prohibiting transgender minors from accessing puberty blockers and hormonal transition treatments. Minors and their families, a Memphis gynecologist and the administration of outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden denounce the character “discriminatory” of Tennessee law, a text intended to “protect health and well-being” under 18s facing the potential risks of these medical treatments.
They claim that this law violates a provision of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution on “equal protection” citizens since it deprives transgender people of access to treatments authorized for others for medical reasons. According to the law, “a person assigned as female at birth cannot receive these medications to live as a man whereas someone assigned as male at birth can”underlined the legal advisor to the Biden administration, Elizabeth Prelogar, at the opening of her pleading.
“High stakes”
The Attorney General of Tennessee, Jonathan Skrmetti, assures on the contrary in his written arguments that this law “does not include any classification based on sex”. The law “establishes a distinction between minors requesting access to medications for gender transition and those requesting them for other medical purposes. And there are boys and girls in both categories”he argues. “If the federal State is free to favor its concept of +transition first, ask questions later+, the Constitution (of UNITED STATES ) does not force Tennessee to do the same”he asserts.
-Tennessee claims to respond to a “explosion of gender dysphoria diagnoses” and prevent the risks of potentially irreversible consequences of transition treatment for minors. Gender dysphoria refers to the state of suffering experienced by children or adolescents when faced with the mismatch between their gender identity and the sex assigned at birth. Supporters of these treatments, for their part, emphasize the beneficial effects, in particular a significant reduction in cases of depression and suicide among these minors.
“Transgender people and our health have played an outsized role in political discourse”
Chase Strangio
In an article published Tuesday by the New York Times, Chase Strangio, lawyer for the powerful civil rights organization ACLU, which represents the plaintiffs, confides that he himself benefited “personally, treatments at the heart of the case”. “I will not only present legal arguments before the judges, I will also embody them”adds Chase Strangio, the first openly transgender lawyer to plead before the Supreme Court. Although the question of law to be decided is “relatively narrow, the stakes are high, especially in the lead-up to Donald Trump taking office after a presidential campaign in which transgender people and our health played an outsized role in political discourse”.
Republicans have made attacks on the place of transgender people one of their warhorses against the «wokism»the right-thinking with which they accuse the Democratic camp. They particularly target the participation of transgender men in women's sports competitions and the access of minors to transition treatments.
