The Supreme Court’s ‘Skrmetti’ Decision Protects Gay/Lesbian Kids
The ruling is a boon for gender-confused children
On June 18, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow states to bar sex-transition treatments for minors.
The Supreme Court’s decision will help to protect the safety and well-being of gender-confused gay and lesbian kids, but that angle isn't being reported by the mainstream media, which lazily regurgitates the views of the big LGBTQ+ lobbies regarding what’s now overwhelmingly referred to as “gender-affirming care.”
The Ruling
United States v. Skrmetti, Attorney General and Reporter for Tennessee, et al. will permit Tennessee to ban puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for those under the age of 18. These treatments are typically precursors to genital sex-change surgeries and (for girls) double mastectomies.
Tennessee’s law does let healthcare providers administer puberty blockers or hormones to minors to treat certain other conditions but not to treat “gender dysphoria,” “gender identity disorder,” or “gender incongruence.”
The ruling also applies to 26 other states with similar laws that ban or severely limit access to puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and sex-change surgeries for minors with gender-identity issues. Some of these state statutes had been temporarily blocked by courts.
The Supreme Court’s action, let’s note, does not limit the rights of transgender adults to pursue sex-transition procedures, which is an entirely different matter.
Science Matters!
Why was the Skrmetti decision vital to protect lesbian and gay children? Here’s some of the science that Big Pharma and Big LGBTQ+ don't want people to know:
Evidence suggests that gender identity is fluid during adolescence. Bachmann et al (2024) found that less than 50% of adolescents diagnosed with gender dysphoria maintained that diagnosis over a five-year period. Similarly, research by Rawee et al (2024) shows that nearly 20% of 11-year-olds report questioning their gender, but this figure drops to below 2% in the mid-twenties. These findings suggest that for most young people, gender questioning is a natural and temporary aspect of development, not a fixed identity requiring medical intervention.
Along similar lines: Released May 1, the U.S. Health and Human Services Department’s report “Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria Review of Evidence and Best Practices” recommended talk therapy/counseling instead of medical interventions for gender-confused children and adolescents (and was denounced by the usual players on the progressive left and within the pro-transitioning LGBTQ+ matrix).
Skewed Reporting
But the misreporting on this case began prior to the Supreme Court’s ruling. Matt Osborne pointed out that the LGBTQ+ press, in particular, was being disingenuous (shocking!) about the case. He wrote:
…if the Supreme Court upholds the Tennessee ban, then what actually is next? … What the LGBTQAlphabet+ fears most, of course, is that this all-powerful evangelical group [one of 74 submitted briefs is from the Southern Baptist Convention] will escalate quickly, and start planning concentration camps for drag queens.
The Real ‘Conversion Therapy’
As I wrote earlier this year, because LGBTQ+ treats immutable sexual orientation and “gender identity” noncongruence (i.e., gender dysphoria) as both being inborn and permanent, counseling to help gender-confused gay kids is being banned and, instead, their conditions are being medicalized.
While LGBTQ+ activists and others rightly criticize psychotherapies that seek to change sexual orientation as being destructive for gay kids, the real “conversion therapy” that should be banned, or at least heavily restricted, is altering the bodies of gender non-conforming young lesbian girls and gay boys, to turn them into faux heterosexuals.
As Dennis Kavanagh recently wrote:
"Gay conversion therapy via chemical castration and brutal surgeries happened on the Pride leaders’ watch. At every point, they didn’t just abandon their posts, they cheered gender ideology on. The world is slowly waking up to all of this."
Indeed, more gays and lesbians are realizing what’s happened. As James Bessinger noted:
Young boys who might grow up to be happy, well-adjusted Gay men are now being told they must be girls if they have an affinity for the feminine. Tomboy girls are funneled toward double mastectomies and boys names before they’re old enough to develop breasts. ...
Many of us came out of the closet to be ourselves—not to be redefined by a movement that has come to see biological truth as bigotry and traditional Gays and Lesbians as oppressive. We didn’t spend decades pushing for acceptance just to be used as human shields for a sexual and political agenda we never agreed to.
Or, as expressed in this photo from the LGB Courage Coalition:
Finally, David Link asks:
What happens when kids who lack the life experience to truly comprehend the enormity of the decision to undergo medical interventions later realize they aren’t truly gender dysphoric but were just going through puberty? And what about the questions regarding the efficacy and long-term results when minors are subject to these interventions? Not to mention the considerable concern about the possibility of children misinterpreting their same-sex attraction as gender-nonconformity and thus as gender incongruence or dysphoria.
Much harm has already been done to gender-nonconforming proto-gay and lesbian children who haven’t a clue how sexual orientation differs from gender identity. But the Skrmetti ruling at least allows states to limit those harms going forward.
To receive future posts by Stephen Henry Miller at no cost:Addendum:
Maia Poet, a 25-year-old lesbian and detransitioner, argues that "restricting access of gender medicine to legal adults (18 year olds and above, in most countries) will not be enough to meaningfully protect kids and young people from being harmed in mind and in body by gender ideology."
From her recent speech for Detrans Awareness Day:
We must understand that what started as a rogue medical experiment confined to a few European hospitals nearly a century ago, has morphed into a widespread ideological assault on reality which has invaded every institution within Western society, which has thoroughly pervaded youth culture. We are beyond the point where legislation alone is capable of neutralizing the threat of this ideology to our young people.
If these kids are anything like me, they will need to be de-radicalized and they need proper mental healthcare and guidance. If we truly wish to end the death grip of gender ideology on our society, as a start, we need to face the distress that these children are facing in an aggressively honest, compassionate and practical way.