A Return to Sanity: Supreme Court Upholds Bans on "Gender Affirming Surgery" for Children 6-3 in a Major Repudiation of the Extremist Transgender Cult
Update: Thomas Warns Against Deferring to Fake "Experts"

Sean Davis @seanmdav

BREAKING: In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld Tennessee's law banning genital mutilation of minors under the guise of so-called "trans" surgery.

"The Court's role is not 'to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic' of [the ban on surgically mutilating minors], but only to ensure that the law does not violate equal protection guarantees," the Supreme Court ruled. "It does not. Questions regarding the law's policy are thus appropriately left to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process."

Fox:

The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a Tennessee law banning specific transgender medical treatments for adolescents in the state is not discriminatory, ruling 6-3 to uphold the law.

At issue in the case, United States v. Skrmetti, was whether Tennessee's Senate Bill 1, which "prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow 'a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex' or to treat 'purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity,'" violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The ACLU claimed that because girls who experience "precocious puberty" at ages as young as nine are given hormone blockers to delay their puberty until 12 or 13, it's "discriminatory" to forbid girls from taking hormone blockers to stop their puberty altogether, and then flood them with testosterone to create weird and unconvincing fake "boys."

That's like saying the law should treat a doctor who cuts into you to remove a tumor the same as a thug who stabs you on the street.

That law prohibits states from allowing medical providers to deliver puberty blockers and hormones to facilitate a minor's transition to another sex.

It also targets healthcare providers in the state who continue to provide such procedures to gender-dysphoric minors-- opening these providers up to fines, lawsuits and other liability.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts ruled that the law question is not subject to heightened scrutiny "because it does not classify on any bases that warrant heightened review."

"This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field," he said. "The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound."

United States v. Skrmetti was one of the most closely watched cases of the Supreme Court's term, with potential ripple effects for ongoing legal battles over transgender rights -- including bathroom access and participation in school sports.

The ruling could also serve as a legal pretext in future cases involving LGBTQ+ protections, including whether sexual orientation qualifies as a "protected class" on par with race or national origin.

"The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best," he added. "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 Fourteenth Amendment. Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process."

All three liberal justices notably dissented in the case.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a scathing dissent that cited a long history of laws discriminating against others, noting that transgender persons in the U.S. make up less than 1% of the country's population. There are an estimated 1.3 million adults and 300,000 adolescents aged 13 to 17 who identify as transgender, according to the UCLA law school's Williams Institute.

She noted that SB1 "expressly classifies on the basis of sex and transgender status, so the Constitution and settled precedent require the Court to subject it to intermediate scrutiny."

"The majority contorts logic and precedent to say otherwise, inexplicably declaring it must uphold Tennessee's categorical ban on lifesaving medical treatment so long as 'any reasonably conceivable state of facts' might justify it," Sotomayor said, adding: "By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims."

"In sadness, I dissent," she said.

"Lifesaving medical treatment." Get f***ed you vile ugly swine.

...

Justice Samuel Alito cited "hotly disputed" medical studies on the alleged benefits of such medical treatments, and told the government's attorney that those studies "found a complete lack of high-quality evidence showing that the benefits of the treatments in question here outweigh the risks."

"Do you dispute that?" Alito asked during oral arguments.

In his concurrence, Justice Thomas had this to say about fake phony Expertism:

This case carries a simple lesson: In politically contentious debates over matters shrouded in scientific uncertainty, courts should not assume that self-described experts are correct.

Deference to legislatures, not experts, is particularly critical here. Many prominent medical professionals have declared a consensus around the efficacy of treating children's gender dysphoria with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions, despite mounting evidence to the contrary. They have dismissed grave problems undercutting the assumption that young children can consent to irreversible treatments that may deprive them of their ability to eventually produce children of their own.

They have built their medical determinations on concededly weak evidence. And, they have surreptitiously compromised their medical recommendations to achieve political
ends.

The Court today reserves "to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process" the power to decide how best to address an area of medical uncertainty and extraordinary importance. Ante, at 24. That sovereign pre-
rogative does not bow to "major medical organizations." Post, at 5, n. 5 (opinion of SOTOMAYOR, J.). "[E]xperts and elites have been wrong before--and they may prove to be wrong again." Students for Fair Admissions, Inc.

That last part is Thomas citing himself, from a previous concurrence.

The full decision is here.

Meanwhile, another lowly district court judge, this one, get this, a Biden judge from Massachusetts, issues another insupportable nationwide ban.

A federal judge in Massachusetts on Tuesday broadened the scope of an earlier ruling that blocks the Trump administration from enforcing a controversial passport policy requiring Americans to list their sex "at conception," rather than their gender identity. The order now applies nationwide, protecting all transgender, nonbinary, and intersex Americans.

U.S. District Judge Julia E. Kobick, a Biden appointee, wrote that the plaintiffs in the case--originally just six named individuals--share the same injury as the broader class: an inability to obtain passports that accurately reflect their gender identity. Kobick concluded that the administration's policy is likely unconstitutional and not tied to any "important governmental interest."

The initial lawsuit was filed in February by the ACLU, its Massachusetts affiliate, and the law firm Covington & Burling LLP. It alleges the policy is driven by "impermissible animus" toward gender-nonconforming individuals. Following that, attorneys asked the court to expand the ruling to cover all individuals impacted by the rule, a request Kobick granted Tuesday.

The ruling halts enforcement of a key portion of President Trump's executive order, signed in his first hours back in office, which directed federal agencies to base official documents--including passports and Global Entry cards--on an individual's sex assigned at birth, not their gender identity. The policy also suspended the State Department's prior option that allowed applicants to self-select their gender marker, including the nonbinary "X" option.

Of course, the Democrat-Media Party's violent transgender street militias are threatening to murder Supreme Court Justices:

Update: Thomas Warns Against Deferring to Fake "Experts"&bodytext=Sean Davis @seanmdav BREAKING: In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court has upheld Tennessee's law banning genital mutilation of minors under the guise of so-called "trans" surgery. "The Court's role is not 'to judge the wisdom, fairness, or logic' of...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 01:22 PM

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