NC Family Staff | December 9, 2024 | SHARE: 
The Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments this week in United States v. Skrmetti, a case that will likely determine the constitutionality of Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1. This law “prohibits a healthcare provider from performing on a minor or administering to a minor a medical procedure if the performance or administration of the procedure is for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex.”
Twenty-five other states, including North Carolina, have similar protections to ensure that minors are not victimized by harmful and often irreversible drugs and surgeries. North Carolina’s House Bill 808—Gender Transitions/Minors in part states: “It shall be unlawful for a medical professional to perform a surgical gender transition procedure on a minor or to prescribe, provide, or dispense puberty-blocking drugs or cross-sex hormones to a minor.” (The law also allows for certain rare exceptions.) This law and similar provisions in other states are based on the growing evidence of the strong harms instead of benefits from these procedures.
Jonathan Skrmetti, the state’s Attorney General is defending Tennessee’s law based on the belief that minors are unable to give informed consent for procedures and medications that have lifelong implications; and that the procedures are risky and unnecessary. “In fact,” says Alliance Defending Freedom attorney Erin Hawley, “studies show that if transition drugs and procedures are not administered to children, gender dysphoria desists or goes away on its own for 85% of children with gender dysphoria.”
Many countries in Europe have been abandoning the dangerous and poorly tested “gender-affirming care” model and are moving toward counseling and a wait-and-see approach. The Cass Review, released earlier this year, illuminated the lack of supporting science for youth “gender affirming care,” including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgeries. Dr. Cass said, “The reality is that we have no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of interventions to manage gender-related distress.” Laws, like Tennessee’s that prohibit “gender-affirming care”, have been instituted as a protection for our children.
The plaintiffs in this case claim that the law infringes on the rights of gender-confused minors. They argue in their brief that Tennessee’s law violates the Equal Protection Clause, because it bans medical treatment in what they say are “explicit sex-based terms.” Furthermore, they argue that boys and girls can, under the TN law, receive medications to help promote their healthy growth into the sex they were “assigned at birth,” but not for the purpose of transitioning into their purported identity.
The high court will now decide the fate of families and gender-confused children across this country. Will they recognize that the TN law, as well as others across the country like North Carolina, are in place to protect children from harm? These state laws are supported by significant medical evidence.
Most importantly, the Bible clearly states that God has made humans in His own image and that He created only two sexes – male and female. “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Gen. 1:27). We are not free to pick which one we are. Psalm 139:14 states, “I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” Let us pray that the Supreme Court Justices know this truth as well.
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