July 29, 2025 - Epoch Times
09:47
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| Now for this next story, let's collectively take a break from discussing the Middle East in order to discuss something closer to home. | |
| Back in 2023, the state legislature of Tennessee passed a law called SB1. | |
| And this law, it explicitly banned transgender minors from receiving puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and then later the law was amended to also ban quote-unquote gender-affirming surgeries. | |
| Or to be very specific, the text of this particular law, it prohibited healthcare professionals from administering puberty blockers and or hormones for the purposes of quote, enabling a minor to identify with or live as a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex or treating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity. | |
| This particular law, it applied to anyone in the state of Tennessee who was below the age of 18, even if that minor got consent from their parents. | |
| However, it's worth mentioning that this law, it also had some exceptions. | |
| For instance, kids who needed those treatments for medical reasons would still be allowed to receive them. | |
| And so, for instance, if you had a child who had an early onset of puberty, he or she would be allowed to get puberty blockers and or hormones if they were prescribed by their doctor. | |
| It's only that these things could no longer be given to children simply because that child claimed that he or she was transgender. | |
| Now, obviously, this law was immediately challenged in court. | |
| You had civil rights group sue the state, arguing that this new law, it was for one, a violation of the 14th Amendment because these groups claimed it provided unequal protection under the law. | |
| And then secondly, they claimed that this law was a form of sex discrimination against transgender minors. | |
| Now, on the flip side, the state of Tennessee, they argued that this was not discrimination, but rather it was the regulation of medical care for minors, something they claim was well within the purview of the state. | |
| Now, after going through the appeals process, the case wound up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, where after hearing both sides of the argument, the court issued a 6-3 split decision with Justices Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, Sam Alito, John Roberts, and Clarence Thomas all ruling in favor of the state of Tennessee. | |
| Specifically, the court ruled that states can ban gender-affirming care for minors using a more lenient legal standard as long as that ban is framed as an age-based medical rule rather than a gender-based medical rule. | |
| Writing for the majority of the court, you had Chief Justice John Roberts write the following, quote, Tennessee's law prohibiting certain medical treatments for transgender minors is not subject to heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and satisfies rational basis review. | |
| Now, that's a bit of legalese, but essentially what the court did was that they officially weakened the legal standard that's to be at play in these types of laws. | |
| By treating this particular law as discriminating based on age rather than based on sex, the U.S. Supreme Court avoided having to apply a stricter legal standard, the one that's normally meant to protect against gender discrimination. | |
| Let me briefly break down for you what that actually means. | |
| When a given law does not involve a protected class, like for instance race or gender, the courts use what's known as the rational basis review in order to try and figure out whether that law comports with the U.S. Constitution. | |
| It's a lenient standard where the court basically just asks the following. | |
| Is there any legitimate reason for this law? | |
| Now, naturally, all laws have some legitimate reason for them. | |
| And so the government almost always wins cases that fall into this particular category. | |
| However, if a given law instead treats people differently based on gender, sex, or other characteristics, well, the courts apply a standard of heightened scrutiny. | |
| In this scenario, the courts ask a different question. | |
| They ask whether the law is, quote, substantially related to an important government interest. | |
| Under this higher level of scrutiny, the government has to prove that for one, they have a good reason for this law, and that secondly, the law as formulated is closely tied to that good reason. | |
| And just for your general reference, I will also mention that there's a third level called strict scrutiny, and that applies when a law involves things like race, religion, national origin, or it affects people's fundamental rights, like voting or free speech. | |
| In cases involving strict scrutiny, the court asks if a given law is, quote, narrowly tailored to achieve a compelling government interest. | |
| And in those cases, the government often loses. | |
| And so those are the three buckets that a given law might fall into. | |
| Now, the civil rights groups that were suing the state, they were imploring the U.S. Supreme Court to interpret Tennessee's SB1 under the heightened scrutiny standard. | |
| However, as we just read a moment ago from the U.S. Supreme Court majority opinion, the majority of the court said that SB1, as well as similar laws to it across the whole country, should actually be judged on a rational basis review. | |
| And so, with that standard in place, all that has to be established is that the state government had a rational basis for enacting the law. | |
| They had a rational reason for why the law needed to go into effect, which, as John Roberts wrote here, the state of Tennessee was able to successfully do. | |
| Quote, Tennessee determined that administering puberty blockers or hormones to minors to treat gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, or gender incongruence carries risks, including irreversible sterility, increased risk of disease and illness, and adverse psychological consequences. | |
| The legislature found that minors lag the maturity to fully understand these consequences, that many individuals have expressed regret for undergoing such treatments as minors, and that the full effects of such treatments may not yet be known. | |
| And therefore, both SB1 as well as similar laws like it across the whole country can stand as they are. | |
| Quote, Our role is not to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic of the law before us, but only to ensure that it does not violate the equal protection guarantee of the 14th Amendment. | |
| Having concluded, it does not. | |
| We leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process. | |
| And indeed, the reason this matters, as is being alluded to here in this majority opinion, is because Tennessee is not the only state in the nation with this type of law on the books. | |
| In fact, looking across the entirety of the country, over half of the states, more than 25, 27 if you include some that have been challenged, but over 25 have passed similar bans. | |
| In fact, up on your screen right now is a map showing the current state of these bans across the whole country. | |
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| Now, the text and the specifics of each law differ from state to state, but basically in almost all the states in that map, the ban includes a prohibition on giving puberty blockers, on giving hormone therapies, and or providing quote-unquote gender-affirming surgeries to people under the age of 18. | |
| Now, the only exceptions are the states of Arizona and New Hampshire on that map. | |
| Their specific bans only apply to surgeries. | |
| Kids can still get puberty blockers as well as hormones in those two states. | |
| Also, the states of Arkansas and Montana, they previously had laws in the books, but they were overturned by the courts. | |
| However, actually now, with this Supreme Court ruling in place, perhaps those two states, those legislatures, will actually rework the language in those laws and try to get them reinstated as well. | |
| Because with this Supreme Court's new ruling, it's actually more likely that these bans will survive future legal challenges. | |
| And so there you have it. | |
| Much like gun laws, election laws, and abortion laws, and other things like that, the question of whether kids can get hormones, surgeries, and puberty blockers has been returned back down to the state level with different states going in very different directions. | |
| If you'd like to read the entirety of the Supreme Court ruling, I'll throw the PDF version of it as well as the dissenting opinions. | |
| You'll be able to find them down in the description box below. | |
| In the comment section, as always, leave your thoughts whether you agree with this ruling, whether you think it's proper, whether you think it's correct for the states to be able to decide whether their kids should be given these things. | |
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| And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from The Epic Times. | |
| Stay informed. |
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