Last week, The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) heard oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a critical case from Tennessee that will decide the future of medical access to gender-affirming care for youth nationwide. A rally took place on the outside during the hearing with speeches from a slew of advocates and high-profile trans people including actor Elliot Page and Raquel Willis, the co-founder of the Gender Liberation Movement. In a historic first, attorney Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, became the first openly trans attorney to argue at SCOTUS on behalf of the plaintiffs.
ACLU and Lambda Legal are suing the state of Tennessee on behalf of Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville, their 15-year-old daughter, two anonymous plaintiff families, and Dr. Susan Lacy of Memphis, TN. The ACLU argued that Tennessee’s ban is discriminatory on the basis of sex, especially when the ban on puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy doesn’t extend to cisgender youth, and as such violates the 14th Amendment. The forthcoming ruling in Skrmetti, which will come down next year, is poised to have far-reaching consequences for healthcare access for trans people of all ages, particularly impacting an estimated 140,000 youth living in states with bans on their medical care. Currently, 26 states have enacted legislation that partially or fully ban gender-affirming care for trans youth, forcing thousands of families to become refugees in their own country as they seek safety and essential medical care elsewhere.
“As all parents know, when your child is suffering, you are suffering,” Strangio said. “My heart aches for the parents who spent years watching their children in distress and eventually found relief in the medical care that Tennessee now overrides their judgment to ban. Whatever happens today, tomorrow, and in the months and years to come, I trust that we will come together to fight for the realized promise of our Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection for all.”
After the oral arguments were presented, a community hangout took place at the local D.C. spot As You Are. There, the Gender Liberation Movement, an emergent organization dedicated to bodily autonomy and self-determination for all, invited families and their trans children (many of whom traveled cross-country to protest the hearing) to get their portraits taken. Photographed by Rosscollab, the majority of these families traveled from states that, if SCOTUS were to rule against their healthcare, would uphold a ban on gender-affirming care.
One of the families told me, “We’re just a normal family supporting our kid the best we know how. This isn’t something we had planned on, but we listened to our child and got them the medical care they needed. A ruling against gender-affirming care would be devastating for families like ours.”
