Supreme Court case sparks divided rallies

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: It’s Thursday the 5th of December.

This is WORLD Radio and we’re glad you’ve joined us today. Good morning, I’m Lindsay Mast.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard.

First up on The World and Everything in It: The United States takes Tennessee to court.

ROBERTS: We'll hear argument this morning in Case 23477, United States v. Skrmetti.

MAST: That kicked off more than two hours of debate yesterday. At issue is a Tennessee law that prohibits doctors from providing hormone injections and surgeries that are inconsistent with the biological sex of minors.

REICHARD: We’ll get into the legal issues on Monday’s Legal Docket. For today, we’ll hear the debate in the public square around so-called “gender affirming care” for minors.

Washington Bureau reporter Carolina Lumetta spoke with people gathered outside the court.

SOUND: [CHEERING AND MUSIC PULSING]

CAROLINA LUMETTA: Demonstrators stamp their feet and pull out hand warmers standing in front of the Supreme Court for dueling rallies. On the left side, members of the ACLU wave pink and blue flags and dance to a D-J’s music. On the right side facing the Court, organizations across the political spectrum supported a controversial Tennessee law. While the justices considered the constitutional questions in the chamber, the crowd out in front found themselves on opposite sides of the cultural divide.

JARROD LAND: I think I understand what the other side is saying in terms of they see it as protecting youth, but I mean I see this as protecting youth, I mean there's great signs here that say gender affirming care is life-saving, right?

Jarrod Land is a student at Cornell University, in New York. He views the case as an instance of the government telling people what to do with their bodies.

JARROD LAND: The ability to express yourself is so important to feel comfortable in your own body, and I think that both sides need to come together and realize that we all just want to be ourselves, we all want to like feel true to our bodies, and I think there is a lot of empathy be garnered, that people aren’t willing to talk to each other; that is the really concerning part here.

On the other side of the plaza, Dawn Land waves a black and pink sign that says “no one is born in the wrong body.”

DAWN LAND: No one has the right to consent for kids to be sterilized. If a child wanted to drink alcohol, does the parent have the right to consent for them to drink alcohol or get a tattoo? … It's not right. Kids' innocence needs to be protected and no one has the right to consent to transgender ideology for their kids.

Land filed a referendum against a law in her state of Washington that allows the state to shelter children away from their parents and provide transgender procedures without parental consent.

DAWN LAND: They will hide that child from their parents, put them in a host home, and pay for their transition. And there are no age restrictions on that…It labels parents as abusive because they won't affirm their child. So the Tennessee law would be a wonderful blueprint nationwide

Parents on the pro-trans side said they worry about suicide rates if their children are not affirmed when they question their gender. And they believe that part of that affirmation should include medical interventions like hormone treatments and body modifications through plastic surgery.

ANNE ELIASSON: At 14 my daughter absolutely knew who she was, a heck of a lot better than I knew who she was.

Anne Eliasson is a mom from Richmond, Virginia. She waves a sign that reads “Fight like a mother for trans rights.”

ELIASSON: So that's a big piece of it, was listening to her and letting her be the expert on who she was. Also together we sat down with doctors. And we studied the science and the healthcare and the medicine behind all of it and made sure that the choice she was making was her choice and that she was educated on the science behind it.

She argues that children like hers will plunge into depression and suicidal ideation if the Tennessee law stands.

ELIASSON: So gender dysphoria, I've never experienced it, but I watched her go through it. It's crippling and it's horrifying for her. And her life depended on getting through that with the assistance of doctors who were trained to help her get through that.

The Trevor Project, a pro-LGBT organization, reports that suicide attempt rates among transgender youth jumped to 72 percent between 2018 and 2022. They claim laws that affirm biological sex caused the spike. Concerned parents outside the Supreme Court cited those numbers in advocating for further access to transgender procedures. Inside, Justice Samuel Alito asked ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio about suicide rates.

ALITO: Do you maintain that the procedures and medications in question reduce the risk of suicide?

STRANGIO: I do, Justice Alito, maintain that the medications in question reduce the risk of depression, anxiety, and suicidality, which are all indicators of potential suicide.

Justice Alito then brought up data in a study commissioned by the National Health Service in the United Kingdom published earlier this year.

ALITO: On page 195 of the Cass Report, it says, "There is no evidence that gender affirmative treatments reduce suicide.”

STRANGIO: What I think that is referring to is there is no evidence in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide. However, there are multiple studies, long-term longitudinal studies that do show that there is a reduction in suicidality, which I think is a positive outcome to this treatment.

The Justices also argued about who bears the responsibility for deciding where to draw the lines for medical regulations courts or legislators? Back outside the Court, Tennessee state senator Adam Lowe discussed the original intent of his state’s law.

LOWE: We're not discriminating against care here. What we're doing is defining what care means.

He says his legislature is not suppressing parental rights, but rather, regulating the state healthcare system.

LOWE: …The legislature with this bill operated within its authority with goodwill to provide the best care possible for Tennesseans, and I hope that the justices see it that way.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Carolina Lumetta in Washington.

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