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The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday morning over the constitutionality of banning sex-change procedures for legal minors—including hormone replacement treatments and the use of puberty blockers. At the core of United States v. Skrmetti is a Tennessee law that bans gender transition for minors and could have a far-reaching impact on at least 24 other states that have similar laws on the books.

While most of the nine Supreme Court Justices appeared skeptical of the challenge to the Tennessee law, far-left Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor both laid out bizarre arguments in defense of the Biden-Harris government’s legal challenge. Justice Jackson likened the law to past bans on interracial marriage, which were overturned in the high court’s landmark Loving v. Virginia. Going even further, Justice Sotomayor likened gender transition procedures—which can render patients sterile and have a host of other life-altering side effects—to simply taking an aspirin.

SEX CHANGES & INTERRACIAL MARRIAGE.

“The question was whether [bans on interracial marriage were] discriminatory because it applied to both races and wasn’t—you know—necessarily invidious or whatever,” Justice Jackson argued, comparing the marriage bans with the Tennessee sex change law.

“But as I read the statute here—excuse me—the case here, you know, the court starts off by saying that Virginia is now one of 16 states which prohibited and punished marriages on the basis of racial classifications. And when you look at the structure of that law, it looks—in terms of you can’t do something that is ‘inconsistent with your own characteristics?’ It’s sort of the same thing.”

Justice Brown Jackson went on to suggest Virginia could have avoided having its interracial marriage ban overturned if it had made similar classification arguments used by Tennessee in defense of its sex change ban.

JUST LIKE AN ASPIRIN?

Not to be outdone, Justice Sonia Sotomayor pushed back against Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice’s contention that allowing sex change procedures for minors could leave their bodies “irreparably harmed for unproven benefits.” According to the 70-year-old Justice, such life-altering medical procedures—which could include the removal of genitalia and breasts—are comparable to taking an aspirin.

“I’m sorry, counselor, every medical treatment has a risk. Even taking aspirin,” Sotomayor responded, adding: “There’s always going to be a percentage of the population, under any medical treatment, that’s going to suffer a harm. So the question in my mind is not, ‘Do policymakers decide whether one person’s life is more valuable than the millions of others who get relief from this treatment?’ The question is, can you stop one sex from the other?”

Image by Domenico Convertini.


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The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday morning over the constitutionality of banning sex-change procedures for legal minors—including hormone replacement treatments and the use of puberty blockers. At the core of United States v. Skrmetti is a Tennessee law that bans gender transition for minors and could have a far-reaching impact on at least 24 other states that have similar laws on the books.

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