More than 30 prominent Republican officials and conservative leaders filed amicus brief A Tennessee law banning transitional care for minors was challenged by the US Supreme Court on Tuesday.
“While the government has a role in ensuring the safety of children, that role is limited and does not justify the government second-guessing the judgment of conscientious parents who are in the best position to know what their children need.” “States have no business overruling the decisions of their children’s doctors, the medical profession more generally, but the children themselves and fit parents who make informed medical choices supported by their conscience.”
The The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in JuneLW v. Skrmetti because Republican lawmakers in dozens of states have introduced bills to limit sex-affirming care for minors and, in some states, adults on Medicaid, including puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery. Until now 26 states, including Tennessee, have taken such measures.
Among the signatories to the amicus brief are seven former Republican members of Congress: Reps. Christopher Shays of Connecticut, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida, Susan Molinari of New York, Deborah Pries of Ohio, Claudine Schneider and Barbara Comstock of Rhode Island, and Denver Riggleman of Virginia. The list also includes three incumbent Republican state legislators — Rep. Dan Zvonitzer of Wyoming and Reps. Chris Sander and Chad Ingles of Missouri — and Brian Jones, communications director for John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign and senior adviser to Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential bid. . .
“It’s important that we as Republicans, conservatives, parents and advocates come together to support individual liberties and prevent discrimination while protecting limited government and parental rights,” said Ros-Lehtinen, who has a transgender son. statement via email to NBC News.
Ros-Lehtinen is the mother of Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of Defenders of Trans Equality (formerly the National Center for Transgender Equality), the largest trans rights advocacy group in the country.
“We can all agree that parents know what is best for their children, and the government should not prevent parents from making well-informed decisions,” Ros-Lehtinen said. “This brief emphasizes that the Court must recognize that the bans pose serious risks to members of the LGBT community, limited government, and personal liberty.”
In addition to arguing that the Tennessee law violates the constitutional rights of parents to raise their children, the brief argues that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause by allowing non-trans cisgender children to receive puberty blockers, hormone therapy and other surgeries. reasons. Cisgender children, for example, may be prescribed puberty blockers if they start puberty too early.
The brief marks one of the largest groups of current and former Republican officials to take a stand against restrictions on trans health care, after only a few publicly opposed such laws.
Sander, one of the Missouri House representatives who signed the amicus brief, opposed state laws restricting transgender health care and participation of trans student athletes on school sports teams. on the House floor last year.
Sander, who is gay, told The Associated Press that he was considering leaving his party after his Republican colleagues last May when the Missouri House of Representatives voted on a bill that would limit transition care for minors. refused to speak on the bill though he is raised his hand throughout the vote.
According to AP, Sander told reporters after the vote: “Being gay or trans is not a partisan thing. “It has nothing to do with being a Republican or a Democrat. They want to talk about party politics by squeezing my lips.”
At least one of the signatories, Rep. Zvonitzer of Wyoming, voted in favor of a state bill that would ban transitional care for minors. He said that the vote held in March of last year “stems from the desire to protect the interests of the youth of our state, to ensure that decisions with such profound consequences are taken with caution and care.” Zwonitzer said she supports amendments to the bill, including allowing minors to continue receiving psychiatric care to address gender dysphoria, or anxiety caused by a mismatch between the gender assigned at birth and the gender assigned at birth.
“The legislative process has given me the opportunity to make adjustments to create a bill that, while not perfect, is less restrictive,” Zwonitzer said in a statement last week.
“The Supreme Court’s pending decision in Skrmetti is about more than just one state’s ban. It is also about protecting Bostock’s deep and well-established federal protections against employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination,” he added, citing the court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County.
Some legal experts fear that the Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the Tennessee law could be the first step in undermining the main arguments used in Bostock, because both use the equal protection clause to argue against discrimination based on gender identity.
Only two Republican governors — ex Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson In 2021 and Ohio Governor Mike DeWine last year — vetoed bills limiting transitional care to minors. Both of those vetoes were overridden by Republican-led legislatures.
While the brief opposes the Tennessee law, it is in favor of some measures that LGBTQ rights advocates generally support, including measures that would prohibit teachers from disclosing a child’s transgender identity to non-supportive parents.
If Tennessee and other states with health care restrictions “can impose their will on parents, then so can states and local governments that think otherwise, for example by allowing (or even requiring) schools to exclude parents from discussions about their children’s gender expression,” – the brief says. “Other than in the context of gender identity, there is no end to the parental decisions that local, state or federal officials can miss when they think they know better than the parents.”
Also on Tuesday, more than 160 Democratic members of Congress filed a separate amicus brief to the court, calling the Tennessee law “unscientific” and “dangerous.”
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