There are (as I've written repeatedly) good reasons we don't let children do certain things, like sign contracts, get married, join the military, buy a gun, a pack of cigarettes or a bottle of booze, or get a tattoo. We do not allow kids to do these things because they lack judgment, they lack maturity, and they lack experience.
But when it comes to transgender treatments, be they hormonal or surgical, too many advocates seem perfectly willing to let kids make those decisions. And unlike some of the other items, these treatments are life-altering and permanent.
Tennesee recently passed a law banning these treatments for minors. Now that law is headed for the Supreme Court.
Advocates for transgender rights are turning to a conservative-dominated Supreme Court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people.
The justices on Wednesday are taking up the issue of gender-affirming care for transgender minors, which has been banned by Tennessee and 25 other Republican-led states.
The fight over whether transgender adolescents can access puberty blockers and hormonal treatments is part of a broader effort to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use.
Here's the problem: There's just a lot wrong with AP's reporting on this.
First, this is not a matter of "rolling back protections for transgender people." That is a hyperemotional horse squeeze. Nobody is talking about rolling back any protections. The Tennessee law and others like it are about protecting vulnerable children from being victimized by activists and charlatans and being led into making irreversible decisions. Remember, these are kids who cannot legally get a tattoo, and nobody objects to those laws.
Second, the whining about "...including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use" is likewise a pile of hooraw. The sports issue is a matter not of "gender ideology" but biology. Men and boys, no matter how they "identify," are and always will be bigger, stronger, faster, and with more endurance than girls and women. It's a matter of fairness; allowing boys and men on girls' and women's teams is hideously unfair, not for reasons of ideology but of biology. These are facts. As for bathrooms, it's entering into the realm of the surreal when anyone can object to parents not wanting boys in their daughters' locker rooms - and showers.
But here's the real eyebrow-raiser:
In its waning days, the Biden administration, along with families of transgender adolescents, will appeal to the justices to strike down the Tennessee ban as unlawful sex discrimination and protect the constitutional rights of vulnerable Americans.
It's not unlawful, by definition; the law was passed in proper form by the people of Tennesee's elected representatives. That's how a republic works. And there is no constitutional right for advocates to perform unnecessary medical treatments on minors who are unable to give fully informed consent.
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The Supreme Court should uphold Tennessee's law.
I'm rather ambiguous about the notion of a law at the federal level. My immediate inclination is always to maintain government as close to the citizens as possible, and in cases like this, that is at the state level. But we may be reaching the point where some federal boundaries are required. Children, who again are not able to give fully informed consent, are being pushed, persuaded, and perhaps even coerced into these treatments by advocates. Children, who we must remember cannot legally receive a tattoo and who cannot have a tooth pulled without parental consent, are being subjected to permanent, life-altering, irreversible, and sterilizing hormonal and surgical treatments. And, yes, even the puberty blockers and hormonal treatments are irreversible and frequently, if not always, result in sterilization.
Should a 14-year-old be able to make this decision? Should a 14-year-old be allowed to decide that, for the next 60-70 years of their life, they will have no children and grandchildren, that they will face complications, and, in the case of surgical alteration, deal with endless follow-ups and maintaining treatments for the rest of their lives?
No.
Tennessee was right to ban this practice for minors. (Adults are free to do as they please, and bear the consequences accordingly.) The Supreme Court would be right to uphold it and, in so doing, put this argument largely behind us.
