The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in the case of US v. Skrmetti, which centers on a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care. This case is a significant legal battle for transgender rights, with the court’s conservative majority likely to uphold the law.
The hearing revealed not just a strong inclination to support the ban but also a broader, troubling attempt to erase the transgender community from the legal conversation. Throughout the proceedings, conservative justices used a series of legal tactics to justify their stance, which often involved denying the very existence of trans people as a distinct and protected group.
One tactic employed by conservative justices is to argue that discriminatory laws aren’t truly discriminatory. This argument often hinges on redefining what constitutes discrimination. In this case, Tennessee’s law is clearly discriminatory, as it allows hormone treatments for children assigned male at birth but prohibits the same for children assigned female.
However, Tennessee’s Solicitor General Matthew Rice attempted to argue that this law wasn’t discriminatory, claiming that the treatment of transgender people was merely addressing “psychological distress” rather than a legitimate medical need, thereby creating a distinction between trans people and cisgender individuals that the law should treat equally.
Justice Elena Kagan countered by suggesting that the law was plainly discriminatory against transgender individuals, without needing to decide if it was specifically sex-based discrimination. However, the conservative justices, including Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Sam Alito, challenged the notion that transgender people face systemic discrimination.
Conservative Justices Challenge Transgender Rights in US v. Skrmetti Case, Deny Systemic Discrimination
Barrett went so far as to claim that there was no history of state-sponsored discrimination against the trans community, reducing the argument to mere “private” discrimination. This argument is critical because, for a group to receive heightened protection under the Equal Protection Clause, it must be recognized as a “suspect class” that has faced substantial discrimination.
The conservative justices’ dismissals of the trans community’s struggles weren’t just legally troubling but emotionally harmful. Justice Alito questioned whether being transgender was an “immutable characteristic,” suggesting that because trans people transition, they do not possess a fixed identity, thus undermining their legitimacy.
These remarks seemed designed not only to challenge the legal arguments but also to delegitimize transgender identity itself. Such comments contribute to a broader narrative of invalidating the existence of trans individuals, reducing them to a non-recognized or inferior group in the eyes of the law.
The hearing ended with an unsettling reflection of the conservative stance, particularly through Rice’s argument that the case was about granting a “substantive right to non-conformity.” This statement underscores a central tenet of anti-trans rhetoric: the resistance to gender non-conformity.
It reveals that the real issue isn’t about medical care or rights but about a refusal to accept diversity and difference. The conservative justices’ actions in this case reflect a broader disdain for those who do not fit traditional gender norms, and their approach to the law serves to further marginalize and demean transgender people, granting legal legitimacy to prejudice and discrimination.
