States Can and Should Protect Minors from Transgender Ideology

T here’s a dangerous trend sweeping through America, especially among susceptible teenagers. Thanks to social media and peer influencers, teenagers and even adolescents are pumping their bodies with chemicals; the secret is often kept from their parents until it’s too late.

I’m talking, of course, about . . . energy drinks. Last year, Senator Chuck Schumer warned that one brand’s 200 milligrams of caffeine “could endanger the health of kids,” causing them to be moody and “suffer headaches.” He demanded that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigate the drink’s manufacturer.

That’s pretty rich considering that Schumer fully supports giving children hormones and even performing experimental surgeries on them — what he calls “gender-affirming health care” — to make those children look more like the opposite sex. In Schumer’s world, the federal government should intervene when a young girl consumes caffeine equivalent to about two cups of coffee but cheer her on if she takes enough testosterone to make her infertile, increase her risk of heart attacks and strokes, and irreversibly alter her body. So much for public health.

But this is all of a piece with the Biden-Harris administration’s position on this important issue. President Joe Biden appointed Dr. Rachel Levine as assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the second-highest position in our nation’s largest health agency. Levine — a male who identifies and presents as a woman — pressured the World Professional Association of Transgender Health (WPATH) to remove age limits in its standards of care for life-altering procedures used on children experiencing gender dysphoria, from puberty blockers to cross-sex hormones to invasive surgeries that remove healthy body parts.

As the New York Times reported, this pressure wasn’t based on science but on worries that age limits would increase “political opposition” to these dangerous and experimental treatments. So much for science.

Fortunately, we have states like Tennessee, which passed its Senate Bill 1 with bipartisan support after investigations into the controversial practices taking place at Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s gender clinic. This law — like others in more than half the states — prohibits doctors from using puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries to try to make a child’s body look more like the opposite sex. After the American Civil Liberties Union challenged S.B. 1 in federal court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld it as a valid health and safety regulation.

But now, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the case and will hold oral arguments on December 4. And the Biden-Harris administration has joined the ACLU in urging the court to strike the law down so these harmful medical interventions on children can continue. It’s too bad the case doesn’t involve caffeine.

The primary question facing the Supreme Court is whether Tennessee’s law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. As Alliance Defending Freedom, where I serve as senior counsel and vice president of appellate advocacy, explains in our friend-of-the-court brief supporting Tennessee, the law does not regulate who seeks the procedures. The law protects children from irreversible damage caused by the risks and benefits of the treatments requested.

For example, puberty blockers can be used to help a child experiencing precocious puberty develop a healthy body. But when used to avoid puberty for the purpose of “gender affirmation,” the same drugs prevent healthy development and may cause infertility and developmental problems. That’s why the British National Health Service recently directed clinics in the United Kingdom to stop using puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria.

Of course, proponents of these dangerous experiments like to sweep the medical realities under the rug. Worse, politicians and some doctors continue pushing these procedures on children even in the absence of positive outcomes. Many medical experts — even WPATH — acknowledge there are no measurable benefits. And when WPATH commissioned Johns Hopkins University to review the science, that distinguished institution found “little to no evidence” that the experimental treatments benefited children. Rather than disclose this fact, WPATH hid it. Yet because of the science, numerous countries across Europe that once subscribed to this view of treating gender dysphoria are now stepping back.

Still, activists and the Biden-Harris administration seem fixated on creating more victims of this ideology. There are many horrific stories from individuals who call themselves “detransitioners,” who initially tried to transition and then realized it was a mistake and reclaimed their natal sex — after severely damaging their bodies and mental health.

This is why Tennessee passed its law. The Supreme Court should uphold it. Young people deserve love and support, not dangerous, life-altering, and unnecessary drugs and surgeries. If our children need to be protected from 200 mg of caffeine, they certainly need to be kept safe from a lifetime of physical and mental hardship.