Justice Alito spars over trans rights with first openly trans attorney...

[Jessica_Rose]

Justice Alito spars over trans rights with first openly trans attorney at the Supreme Court

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/justice-alito-spars-over-trans-rights-with-first-openly-trans-attorney-at-the-supreme-court/ar-AA1vhf6B?ocid=windirect&cvid=bbc13d9a0a40472199bf0aedaff56364&ei=11

Story by Alex Woodward and Michelle Del Rey (4 Dec 2024)

The Supreme Court's conservative majority appears prepared to uphold Tennessee's law banning gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors, after more than two hours of wide-ranging arguments and questions on whether trans people can be constitutionally protected from discrimination.

Justice Samuel Alito grilled ACLU attorney Chase Strangio, the first-ever openly trans attorney to present at the high court, to repeatedly cast doubt on whether being transgender is "immutable" and thus protected by anti-discrimination laws.

"I think that the record shows that the discordance between a person's birth, sex and gender identity has a strong biological basis and would satisfy an immutability test," Strangio replied.

Justices have been asked to decide whether barring trans kids from medically recommended healthcare qualifies as unconstitutional sex discrimination under the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause.

Rice said a decision on care standards — including whether states can ban trans adults from receiving the same care — should be best left to the "democratic process."

But "when you're one percent of the population or less, it's very hard to see how the democratic process will protect you," said Sotomayor said, referencing the fact that there are roughly 300,000 children between the ages of 13 and 17 who are trans.

"Blacks were a much larger part of the population, and it didn't protect them," she said. "It didn't protect women for centuries."