The Supreme Court is considering a case regarding the law banning gender-affirming care for trans kids

The Tennessee Supreme Court Actions Against Gender-affirming Treatment for Minors in Differing Races and Biases: An Empirical Analysis

The legal profession reinforced that fear. In Boston in 2007, one of my law school professors at Northeastern told our class that we needed to abide by traditional gender norms in court. She instructed that women should wear skirts to appear before juries, and after a presentation in class she told me that I was too “soft-spoken” to be seen as an effective male advocate. Outside class, I found my appearance was regularly the subject of mockery. Some court officers and judges referred to me as Doogie Howser and asked my supervisors if my kid should go to school while I was out of town. I was considered too boyish to be an adult man. I was asked by staff members whether I would be taken seriously in court. Fearing my gender would be a distraction and that my future clients would pay the price, I stayed away from the courtroom for years after graduation.

The Supreme Court is in the middle of a fight over the rights of children who are trans. At issue is a state law in Tennessee that blocks minors from accessing gender-affirming care in the state.

It took nearly a year for LW to get the go ahead, but LW’s mom says that at 15, her once troubled child is an easy and happy teenager, now that she is getting access to treatments for gender dysphoria. The medications, however, are now illegal for minors in Tennessee where the family lives, so they have to drive out of state 10 hours round trip for LW to get the drugs for her transition.

The Constitution guarantees to equal protection of the law, and those challenging the Tennessee law say that the ban is unconstitutional. The law bars access to treatment for kids who want to transition from their sex assigned at birth, but permits those same medications to be used when treating minors suffering from other conditions, like endometriosis or early-onset puberty.

Strangio says that the language of the statute telegraphs the real purpose of the ban. The statute encourages children to appreciate their sex and prohibits treatments that encourage them to be anti-semitic.

Gender-affirming care for trans kids: a case for a new law banning gender dysphoria treatments for minors

“You’ve got countries in Western Europe that were far ahead of us in terms of these types of medications,” says Sen. Johnson. “They are pulling back because they’ve had a longer runway, and they’re seeing that the adverse effects of some of these medications far outweigh any benefit that they have.”

John Bursch of the conservative Christian legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom said that some countries in Europe and the Nordics have national health care systems that cover everyone.

“They can track a patient from birth until death. And so if someone gets cross-sex hormones for the purpose of a gender change at age 15, they can look at how they’re doing at age 20,25, 45 65 and see what the outcomes were,” Bursch notes.

The drugs are accessible in a research setting and access has not been terminated for any minor already using the medications.

There’s a lot about the issue that’s in dispute. To take just one example, parents Samantha and Brian Williams maintain that the law not only bans treatments, it bars parents and children from even consulting doctors about these treatments. The law’s supporters deny that claim to varying degrees. Thelegislative intent doesn’t prohibit or prevent any conversation, Sen. Johnson said. Bursch, on the other hand, says that a family could generally have a conversation about the pros and cons of puberty blockers and hormone treatment, “as long as the doctor was not encouraging someone to engage in an illegal procedure.”

In case of adult patients, they still get care that is gender-affirming. But lawyers for the trans kids argue that if states can ban gender dysphoria treatments for minors, the next step will be to ban such treatments for adults, too.

Source: Supreme Court hears challenge to law banning gender-affirming care for trans kids

What is the worst part of it all? An advice from LW on the path to a new understanding of the physics of the universe

People make assumptions. They say it’s just a phase, because they don’t know what it’s like,” LW says of her experience. “It can certainly feel pretty hopeless,” especially given “how slow” the process is.