Big Supreme Court Win for Reality over Transgender Ideology

The Supreme Court handed down this morning the most closely watched case of this term, United States v. Skrmetti, affirming a Tennessee law banning “gender-affirming” treatments for minors such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy for gender dysphoria. The Court’s 6–3 opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts over the dissents of the three liberals, concluded that Tennessee’s law did not discriminate on the basis of sex or transgenderism and therefore needed to satisfy only “rational basis” review — which it did.

Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas would have gone further to agree with the Sixth Circuit that transgenderism is not a suspect classification at all, and therefore all laws dealing with transgender issues need pass only the lenient rational-basis test. Roberts and the majority left that question open for another day, befitting the chief justice’s preference for judicial minimalism and incrementalism but encouraging further litigation of these issues. Thomas also added a blistering attack on the effort by Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent to shut down democratic lawmaking in this area on the say-so of “experts.”

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Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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The Supreme Court handed down this morning the most closely watched case of this term, United States v. Skrmetti, affirming a Tennessee law banning “gender-affirming” treatments for minors such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy for gender dysphoria. The Court’s 6–3 opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts over the dissents of the three liberals, concluded that Tennessee’s law did not discriminate on the basis of sex or transgenderism and therefore needed to satisfy only “rational basis” review — which it did.

Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Samuel Alito, and Clarence Thomas would have gone further to agree with the Sixth Circuit that transgenderism is not a suspect classification at all, and therefore all laws dealing with transgender issues need pass only the lenient rational-basis test. Roberts and the majority left that question open for another day, befitting the chief justice’s preference for judicial minimalism and incrementalism but encouraging further litigation of these issues. Thomas also added a blistering attack on the effort by Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent to shut down democratic lawmaking in this area on the say-so of “experts.”