Attorney General says Alabama defends children as SCOTUS weighs gender-based care bans

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall expressed support for a ban on gender-affirming care of minors after the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case challenging Tennessee’s ban on such procedures.

“Alabama is proud to help defend Tennessee’s common sense law that protects children from powerful, often irreversible, chemical and surgical gender reassignment procedures,” Attorney General Marshall said in a statement Wednesday.

On Wednesday, the court heard arguments in USA v. Skrmetti, in which the Biden administration and the ACLU challenged Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors.

In October, Alabama filed an amicus brief in support of Tennessee. The state argued that the medical guidelines the Biden administration used to challenge the ban were “manipulated” and not based on evidence.

Medical associations have expressed their support for gender-equitable care for minors. The American Academy of Pediatrics, a group of 67,000 pediatricians, reaffirmed its support for gender-equitable care in 2023.

Tris Emmy Wilson, an organizer with the Alabama Trans Rights Action Coalition, said Marshall and others who opposed gender-affirming care for minors were ignoring the facts.

“The initiation of medical intervention for a transgender minor is a joint decision of loving parents and competent physicians in accordance with established standards of care. This is not a decision made lightly or arbitrarily, and there are many safeguards in place to prevent harm,” Wilson said in an email to AL.com on Wednesday.

The head of an Alabama transgender rights organization, TransFamily Support Services, said in an email to AL.com on Wednesday that gender-affirming care is safe, effective and often life-saving.

“Trans youth deserve compassion and access to medically recommended treatments, not political agendas that threaten their well-being. We will continue to advocate for the dignity and rights of all transgender youth,” said Kathie Moehlig, the group’s executive director.

Alabama’s gender-specific grooming ban went into effect this year after it was challenged in court. The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Alabama’s authority to implement the law.

According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, about 113,900 transgender youth live in states that ban affirming care and 123,600 youth live in states where such a ban is pending.

“Children suffering from gender dysphoria deserve so much better than hormones and surgery,” Marshall said in his statement Wednesday.

The justices’ decision, which is not expected for several months, could have implications for similar laws passed by another 25 states, as well as a range of other efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which ones Sports competitions they take part in and which toilets they are allowed to use.

The court’s three liberal justices appeared firmly on the side of the challengers. But it’s not clear whether any of the conservatives will join in.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor rejected the assertion that the democratic process was the best way to resolve objections to the law. She cited a history of laws that discriminate against others and pointed out that studies show transgender people make up less than 1% of the U.S. population. According to the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School, there are an estimated 1.3 million adults and 300,000 youth ages 13 to 17 who identify as transgender.

“Black people made up a much larger portion of the population and were not protected as a result. It hasn’t protected women for centuries,” Sotomayor said in an exchange with Tennessee Attorney General Matt Rice.

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson said she sees some troubling parallels between Tennessee’s arguments and those of Virginia, which were rejected by a unanimous court in the 1967 Loving decision that legalized interracial marriage nationwide.

Quoting from the 57-year-old decision, Jackson noted that Virginia argued at the time that “the scientific evidence was significantly doubtful and therefore the court should defer to the wisdom of the state legislature.”

Justice Samuel Alito repeatedly pressed Chase Strangio, the ACLU attorney for Tennessee families challenging the ban and the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the nation’s highest court, on whether transgender people should be legally classified as a group. which is vulnerable to discrimination.

Strangio responded that transgender fits that legal definition, although he acknowledged under Alito’s questioning that there are a small number of people who are transitioning. “So it’s not an immutable trait, is it?” Alito said.

Strangio did not give up his view, although he said that the court did not have to rule on the issue to decide the case in his clients’ favor.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.