The Supreme Court’s forthcoming ruling on state child sex change bans could impact a range of issues related to gender identity, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The justices heard oral arguments Wednesday on Tennessee’s law banning medical procedures intended to help a child live as an identity “inconsistent” with their sex, which the Biden administration argues violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
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“There’s been no constitutional analysis of gender identity issues from the court prior to this,” Skrmetti told the DCNF on Thursday. “In the Bostock case, they were looking at statutory language.”
In the high court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, the majority held that discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity equates to sex discrimination in the employment context.
“So potentially, there could be language in the opinion that significantly impacts not just the protection for kids from gender related procedures with life-altering impact,” Skrmetti said. “There could be an impact on litigation about women’s sports teams, about bathroom privacy, potentially other areas of law.”
Skrmetti believes his team did a great job defending the case before the court but acknowledges “you never want to predict” what is going to happen. Win or lose, the court could opt to issue a narrow ruling, or something broader and precedent-setting.
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“The court asked a lot of brilliant questions,” he said. “It was a long argument because I think they recognize this could be a significant case precedentially, and they have months now to think about it and work through it, so there’s a long way to go before we get a decision.”
Several conservative justices pointed to European countries limiting gender transition procedures for children. Justice Samuel Alito questioned why the government claimed that overwhelming evidence supports the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapy while failing to acknowledge studies indicating otherwise, such as the Cass report commissioned by the National Health Service (NHS) England.
Meanwhile, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson drew a parallel between banning child sex changes and bans on interracial marriage. “I’m worried that we’re undermining the foundations of some of our bedrock equal protection cases,” she said.
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Tennessee contends its law does not draw lines based on sex, but based on medical purpose. Giving testosterone to a girl will have vastly different effects than giving it to a boy, the state argues.
Nearly half of all U.S. states have passed laws like Tennessee’s. Skrmetti is certain that this won’t be a decision of “no consequence.”
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First published by the Daily Caller News Foundation.