TENNESSEETHING
The Supreme Court’s conservative majority looks poised to uphold a Tennessee law denying gender-affirming care to transgender youth, in a decision with implications for thousands across the country.
- Lawyers argued in front of the nation’s highest court today about Tennessee’s ban on care for transgender youth, which denies young people access to hormones and puberty blockers for gender-affirming care, even though most prominent medical organizations say they’re safe and effective. The Tennessee law took away “the only treatment that relieved years of suffering for each of the adolescent plaintiffs,” argued ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, the first openly trans lawyer to argue in front of the Supreme Court.
- Unsurprisingly, conservatives weren’t buying that argument. Justice Samuel Alito brought his bigoted-rich-uncle-at-Thanksgiving energy to the proceeding, even casually dropping the phrase “a girl who wants to live like a boy.” Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh repeatedly said that such medical care should be left to state lawmakers and medical experts. That means, Roberts said, “the people’s representatives, rather than to nine people, none of whom is a doctor.”
- All three liberal justices united in their opposition to the law. The arguments “sound like the same kind of arguments that were made back in the day ‘50s and ‘60s with respect to racial classifications and inconsistencies,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said, specifically referencing the Loving v. Virginia case that overturned a ban on interracial marriage. Tennessee isn’t worried about medical safety for trans people, Justice Sonio Sotomayor argued. Instead, conservatives only want “boys to be boys and girls to be girls,” she said.
- The decision could affect thousands of people who live in 23 states that have put in place similar restrictions. “You have to go into this whole different way of being when you’re constantly having to say, ‘I didn’t choose this, there are no good options,’” Kristen Chapman, who moved out of Tennessee with her teenage daughter after the law passed, told the New York Times. “It’s like a natural disaster happens in your family, because it changes how you are and where you feel OK.” About 3 percent of American high schoolers identify as transgender, according to a recent survey, and 34 percent of trans youth have said health insurance companies refuse to change their records to reflect their names. (Our friends at the What A Day podcast talked with Sruti Swaminathan, a staff attorney at the ACLU, about the implications of the Supreme Court decision. Check it out here.)
- The fight over care for young trans people isn’t going away. Opponents of the hormones and puberty blockers argue that there’s little evidence about the long-term outcomes of taking them, and clinicians around the world disagree on exactly when is the best time for people to undergo medical care. In Europe, several countries have recently placed restrictions on medications for young trans people.
“Our fight for justice did not begin today. It will not end in June, whatever the court decides,” Strangio told activists outside the Supreme Court. “But here’s the thing — we are in it together. We’re in it together. Our power only grows,”
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NEWS NEWS NEWS
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Trump chose Peter Navarro, his close aide who was imprisoned for defying a congressional subpoena to testify about the Capitol riots, to be the senior counselor for trade and manufacturing.
Trump picked Jared Isaacman, an entrepreneur who flew twice to orbit with SpaceX, to lead NASA. Surprise, surprise: He’s close with SpaceX owner Elon Musk, who has probably been doing his trademark embarrassing jump in celebration all day. SpaceX relies on a huge amount of its income from federal government contracts. But I’m sure this whole situation will be totally clean and transparent!
Trump picked Paul Atkins, a lobbyist and crypto proponent, to lead the Securities and Exchange Commission. Big win for Trump’s crypto cronies — I’m looking at you, Justin Sun, the crypto bro who spent $6 billion on a banana duct taped to a wall, and $30 million on Trump’s own crypto project.
MAGA talking head Tucker Carlson traveled to Moscow again to interview Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, in an effort to give his audience the “Russian perspective.” Just a few months ago, Carlson conducted a laughably terrible interview with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin. Between those two and Trump coverage, I think his audience gets plenty of the “Russian perspective.”
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan announced that he’s leaving the Democrat Party to run as an Independent in the state’s 2026 gubernatorial race. “It’s clear to me that there are a lot of people in this country who are tired of both parties and tired of the system,” Duggan told the Associated Press
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