United States v. Skrmetti
By Luke Pickrell
Yesterday, the Supreme Court upheld a 2023 Tennessee law banning gender transition care for young people. The ruling in United States v. Skrmetti was six-three, with the Court’s conservative majority arguing that the ban did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection guarantee. Under the law, a child can receive puberty blockers and hormone therapy to help them conform to their sex assigned at birth, but not to treat gender dysphoria.
The decision could have vast consequences, not just for transgender and non-binary people. The ruling limits the situations in which the equal protection clause may be invoked, making it harder for anyone to claim that they have faced discrimination based on their sex. In her dissent, Justice Sotomayor argued that the Tennessee law leads to medical discrimination, and that the ruling “abandons transgender children and their families to political whims.” Many medical experts have expressed devastation and fear.
“This is a step in the wrong direction for trans people of all ages,” said Meredithe McNamara, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine. “If people were truly interested in the well-being of transgender youth, there would be a more sensible discussion being had. ‘How do we advance the quality of evidence? How do we advance services and support for these people?’ That, of course, was never the intention.”
Of the six who supported the Tennessee law, five — Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, Roberts, and Alito — were nominated by presidents who lost the popular vote (George W. Bush and first-term Trump). Of those five, three — Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett — were confirmed by senators representing a minority of the population. Justice Thomas (nominated by George H. W. Bush) was also confirmed by a Senate majority representing less than half the population. To make matters worse, it’s now common knowledge that Thomas is on a billionaire’s payroll.
Over the last two decades, the Court has decimated environmental protections, attacked voting rights, empowered the police, expanded corporate campaign influence, and further criminalized homelessness — a move seized upon by “democratic” champions like Gavin “let me do my own policing” Newsom.
We have no control over the Supreme Court. It dominates our lives and the lives of those we love, doing whatever it wants and making up the rest later. The justices have power not based on universal and equal suffrage, but on the political whims of an indirectly elected president (who loses the popular vote with increasing frequency) and an elitist Senate that grows more malapportioned every year.
The demands of the early twentieth-century Socialist Party of America still resonate.
The abolition of the power usurped by the Supreme Court to pass upon the constitutionality of the legislation enacted by Congress.
National laws to be repealed only by an act of Congress or by a referendum vote of the whole people.
Abolition of the federal district courts and the United States Circuit Court of Appeals.
Give state courts jurisdiction in all cases arising between citizens of several states and foreign corporations.
The election of all judges to short terms.