Thoughts on The Supremes

As I listened to the Supreme Court case U.S. v. Skrmetti hearing on December 4th, I realized how much I knew about this issue. In fact, how I knew everything about this issue. Five years ago I was just a working mom living my life, until the trans bomb hit my family. Now I know more than most of the Justices because I have spent the past several years researching and living it. If you’re a PITT parent, I’m sure you now know more too.

Representing the Biden administration Elizabeth Prelogar, Solicitor General of the United States, started speaking, and I couldn’t believe the misinformation she was spouting. She repeated the same lies we have all heard over and over again, but this time, to the highest court in our land. Fortunately, Justice Alito had done his homework. He had read the Cass Review and knew of the European countries that have been walking away from the gender affirmation model. He spoke to how the dangers outweigh the benefits. Here’s an excerpt of their exchange:

• GENERAL PRELOGAR: “I, of course, acknowledge, Justice Alito, that there is a lot of debate happening here and abroad about the proper model of delivery of this care and exactly when adolescents should receive it and how to identify the adolescents for whom it would be helpful. But I stand by that there is a consensus that these treatments can be medically necessary for some adolescents, and that's true no matter what source you look at.”

• JUSTICE ALITO: “…. can be medically necessary for some minors. But, for the general run of minors, do you dispute the proposition, in fact, that in almost all instances, the judgment at the present time of the health authorities in the United Kingdom and Sweden is that the risks and dangers greatly outweigh the benefits?”

• GENERAL PRELOGAR: “.. I do dispute that because, if you actually look at how those jurisdictions are addressing this issue, they have not outright banned this care.”

• JUSTICE ALITO: “In your opening brief, you did not mention any of these European developments. And in your reply brief, is it true -- is it not true that you just relegated the Cass report to a footnote?”

Prompted by a question from Justice Sotomayor, Prelogar conveyed some misinformation about suicide rates:

• JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “Some -- some children suffer incredibly with gender dysphoria, don't they?”

• GENERAL PRELOGAR: “Yes. It's a very serious medical condition.”

• JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “I think some attempt suicide?”

• GENERAL PRELOGAR: “Yes. The rates of suicide are -- are striking”

Preloger also gave misinformation about how puberty blockers have no effect on fertility. That is such a huge lie. If a child doesn’t go through puberty, they won’t develop their sex characteristics, without which they are sterile. Puberty blockers are not a “pause button.”

• JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: “And the State says its justification here is health and safety for minors. You say there are benefits from allowing these treatments. But there are also harms, right, from allowing these treatments -- at least the State says so -- including lost fertility, the physical and psychological effects on those who later change their mind and want to de-transition, which I don't think we can ignore.

• GENERAL PRELOGAR: “I do want to acknowledge that there is evidence to suggest that gender-affirming care with respect to hormones can have some impacts on fertility. Critically, puberty blockers are -- are -- have no effect in and of themselves on fertility, so I don't think that concern can justify the ban on puberty blockers, which is just pressing pause on someone's endogenous puberty to give them more time to understand their identity.

Preloger stated (misstated really) how the rate of regret is low - another huge lie. She says these children will persist in their gender identity with adolescent onset. But we all know about the impact of social contagion on gender identity, even though Prelogar failed to mention that.

• GENERAL PRELOGAR: “You also mentioned the possibility of regret. The record evidence demonstrates that the rates of regret are very low because, for the population that has access to this treatment, so these are adolescents who have marked and sustained gender dysphoria that has worsened with the onset of puberty, they are very likely to persist in their gender identity.”

Why is Prelogar so worried about someone going through the appropriate puberty? If being trans is so accepted, why does it matter if they look like the opposite sex? Why do they need to pass as the opposite sex? The problem is, no kids are trans and they should go through puberty. In fact, going through puberty is often the cure for their gender dysphoria. Trans is all made up so her argument is ridiculous.

• GENERAL PRELOGAR: “But, if you're thinking about this from the standpoint of there's no harm in just making them wait until they're adults, I think you have to recognize that the effect of denying this care is to -- to produce irreversible physical effects that are consistent with their birth sex because they have to go through puberty before they turn 18. So, essentially, what this law is doing is saying we're going to make all adolescents in the State develop the physical secondary sex characteristics consistent with their gender or with their sex assigned at birth, even though that might significantly worsen gender dysphoria, increase the risk of suicide, and, I think critically, make it much harder to live and be accepted in their gender identity as an adult because, if you're requiring someone to undergo a male puberty and they develop an Adam's apple, that's going to be hard to reverse, and they're more likely to be identified as transgender and subject to discrimination and harassment as adults.”

Another lie that was trotted out is that there are few detransitioners.

• JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: “You acknowledge there is some group, though, who later changes their mind and wants to de-transition? That doesn't defeat your case. I just want to make sure you acknowledge there is, as a factual matter, some group of people?”

• GENERAL PRELOGAR: “Yes, yes. We're certainly not denying that some people might de-transition or regret this care, but all of the available evidence shows that it's a very small number.”

• JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: “If it's evolving like that and changing and England's pulling back and Sweden's pulling back, it strikes me as, you know, a pretty heavy yellow light, if not red light, for this Court to come in, the nine of us, and to constitutionalize the whole area when the rest of the world or at least the people who -- the countries that have been at the forefront of this are, you know, pumping the brakes on this kind of treatment because of concerns about the risks.”

In this exchange the Justices questioned Chase Strangio of the ACLU. Strangio continued pushing the suicide myth before admitting that suicide is rare. Prelogar said the opposite.

• JUSTICE ALITO: “A lot of categorical statements have been made this morning in argument and in the briefs about medical questions that seem to me to be hotly disputed, and that's a bit distressing. One of them has to do with the risk of suicide.”

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

• MR. 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: “Well, I -- I don't regard the Cass review as -- necessarily as -as the Bible or as something that's, you know, true in every respect, but, on page 195 of the Cass report, it says: There is no evidence that gender-affirmative treatments reduce suicide.”

• MR. STRANGIO: “What I think that is referring to is there is no evidence in some -in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide. And the reason for that is completed suicide, thankfully and admittedly, is rare and we're talking about a very small population of individuals with studies that don't necessarily have completed suicides within them.”

Justice Kavanaugh got Strangio to admit that detransitioners exist.

• JUSTICE KAVANAUGH: “And just one point there. You agree that there's some group of people who receive the treatments who later wish they hadn't and wish to de-transition? I know you say it's a smaller group. I understand that. I just want to make sure you agree as a factual matter there is some set of people?”

• MR. STRANGIO: “I -- I agree as a factual matter, as there is in all areas of medicine.”

Arguing for Tennessee in favor of upholding the ban, Solicitor General, J. Matthew Rice, reinforced that there will always be detransitioners with these treatments, and they cannot eliminate the risks and prove the benefits. Justice Sotomayor made an incredible statement comparing our children’s harm to taking an aspirin. She is so cavalier and does not seem to care that some are harmed. Ideology must be more important to her. I wonder if she brought cookies for Prelogar and Strangio too.

• MR. RICE: “Your Honor, the -- my friends' arguments with respect to the alternative approaches is pure policymaking. Justice Kavanaugh recognized throughout his questioning, they cannot stand up here and say that if these alternatives were imposed that there would be no de-transitioners. So there -there is -- there -- they cannot eliminate the risk of de-transitioners. So it -- it becomes a pure exercise of -- of weighing benefits versus risk. And the question of how many minors have to have their bodies irreparably harmed for unproven benefits is one that is best left for the legislature.”

• JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR: “I'm sorry, counselor. Every medical treatment has a risk, even taking aspirin. There's always going to be a percentage of the population under any medical treatment that's going to suffer a harm.”

This was a great statement from Mr. Rice emphasizing that the states have to protect children from medical harm.

• MR. RICE: “Yeah. I think our position is that there are certain times in medicine, history has shown, where the states in their traditional role as regulators have -- have had to intervene. And that's not because -- of course the parents are trying to do the best they can and get the best treatment for -- for their kids, but we've had multiple instances in somewhat recent history where we have stuff like lobotomy, eugenics, that had wide -- widespread acceptance among the medical community, and the state had to intervene as a regulator to protect the children.

This is the crux of the issue and it was good to hear Mr. Rice say it. We have been saying this for years to, at best have it fall on deaf ears, and, at worst to be condemned as transphobes. It’s amazing that the highest court in the U.S. is hearing and, in some cases, acknowledging what parents have been shouting into the void. Neither side mentioned that parents who don’t agree with transitioning their child are vilified and risk losing custody. I wish the Justices knew that. They kept repeating that decisions about subjecting minors to gender affirmation “care” should be left to the parents, but we all know that is only in one direction.