Just when I finished writing about how Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor beclowned herself when she claimed using “gender-affirming care” on minors is akin to taking aspirin, another justice decided to make a similarly absurd argument in favor of this practice.
What in heaven’s name is wrong with these people?
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson heard Sotomayor’s silly argument about aspirin and said, “Hold my beer,” as she proceeded to make the case that those supporting state bans on puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and “gender-affirming” surgery” are similar to those who supported bans on interracial marriage.
Read related: Supreme Court Hears Oral Arguments on Trans 'Treatments' for Kids, and Things Get Absolutely Wild
Sonia Sotomayor Makes the Absolute Worst Argument Defending 'Gender-Affirming Care' for Children
Stop looking at me like that. I promise I did not make this up. Scout’s honor.
In fact, here are her comments and an audio recording (below):
“The question was whether it was discriminatory because it applied to both races and it wasn't necessarily invidious or whatever. But as I read the case here, the Court starts off by saying that Virginia is now one of 16 states which prohibit and punish marriages on the basis of racial classifications. When you look at the structure of that law, it looks in terms of...you can't do something that is inconsistent with your own characteristics. It's the same thing. It's interesting to me that we now have this different argument, and I wonder whether Virginia could have gotten away with what they did here by just making a classification argument the way that Tennessee is in this case.”
Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson just compared Tennessee banning minors from getting transgender surgeries to banning interracial marriage. She is a moron. No lawyer with a functional brain would make this argument. pic.twitter.com/oPFNyfJiO7
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) December 4, 2024
Of course, Jackson, who is famous for not being able to define a “woman,” is referring to the Loving v. Virginia case, which saw the Supreme Court strike down laws prohibiting interracial marriage. The justice is trying to argue that those trying to protect children suffering from gender dysphoria from treatments that could make their situation worse are basically the present-day embodiment of Bull Connor.
If I had known I would be spending part of my day explaining why the struggles of African Americans are nothing like the debate over “gender-affirming care” for kids, I might have stayed in bed. But here we are.
Anyway, Jackson’s analogy is about as intelligent as trying to breathe underwater. As far as I remember, interracial marriages did not carry the risk of permanently damaging one’s body. In fact, most minors don’t end up getting married when they are still children, regardless of what race they are.
On the other hand, puberty blockers and hormone therapy can have life-altering consequences, including permanent infertility, loss of bone density, and other long-term health issues. I have never met a married interracial couple who suffer from these conditions simply because they got hitched.
Moreover, Jackson’s comment ignores the fact that Loving v. Virginia was about fundamental freedoms: The right to marry across racial lines. It had nothing to do with protecting children dealing with serious mental health issues.
As Tennessee Solicitor General J. Matthew Rice argued earlier in the proceedings, these treatments:
“...cannot eliminate the risk of detransitioners. It becomes a pure exercise of weighing benefits versus risk. The question of how many minors have to have their bodies irreparably harmed for unproven benefits is one that is best left to policymakers.”
There is another problem with Jackson’s analogy, one that applies to many on the hard left: The tendency to exploit the struggles of Black Americans in their fight for civil rights to push their depraved agenda. In fact, the ACLU, among others, claimed, without evidence, that overturning Roe v. Wade would somehow jeopardize the legality of interracial marriages.
Progressives love doing this. Interracial couples who challenged marriage bans risked imprisonment, social ostracization, and even violence, all for the simple right to marry. Equating this with the debate over whether kids should undergo certain medical interventions is not only disingenuous, but it diminishes the gravity of the civil rights movement.
At the end of the day, this is not about discrimination. It is about deciding how best to help children suffering from gender dysphoria. Using the civil rights movement in this conversation is ridiculous and should be offensive to those on the left who pretend they care about Black people. But we already know how that goes, don’t we?
