Transgender leaders in Chicago vowed to fight attempts at curtailing access to gender-affirming healthcare after a skeptical Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case challenging Tennessee’s ban on such care for youth.
The U.S Supreme Court on Dec. 4 took up the case of U.S. v. Skrmetti, which was brought by three trans youth and their parents last year to challenge a Tennessee law preventing trans youth from accessing gender-affirming treatments like hormone therapy and puberty blockers.
The case’s decision isn’t expected until June, but it could affect the future of healthcare for trans youth across the country. Twenty-six states have already passed bans on gender-affirming care, affecting an estimated 39.4% of trans youth, according to the Human Right Campaign.
Speaking after the Supreme Court’s hearing during a press conference outside the American Medical Association’s headquarters, 330 N. Wabash Ave., Chrissy Huerta of Brave Space Alliance, a Black- and trans-led community center on the South Side, called this a “critical moment” for trans rights across the country.
“The case not only affects the lives of transgender youth in Tennessee, but also sets a precedent that could ripple through countless communities—here in Illinois as well,” said Huerta, senior HIV testing and counseling coordinator for Brave Space Alliance, who was speaking on behalf of the organization’s CEO, Channyn Lynne Parker.
Those challenging the Tennessee law before the Supreme Court argued that it is a form of sex discrimination that violates the constitution’s 14th Amendment, which guarantees equal treatment under the law. They argued the state is discriminating against transgender patients because there are other cases in which a non-trans person can be treated with puberty blockers or hormone therapy.
But the conservative-leaning justices on the court appeared to lean toward upholding the healthcare ban, repeatedly bringing questions back to the potential harms of gender-affirming treatments, such as potential infertility and regret over having transitioned.
Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union, who became the first known trans person to argue before the Supreme Court, spoke in defense of the case’s petitioners. He noted many trans people do not experience infertility after receiving hormone therapy and that few people experience regret after receiving gender-affirming care.
Instead, most trans youth experience positive outcomes after undergoing gender-affirming treatments like hormone therapy or puberty blockers, Strangio said.
“Tennessee claims the sex-based line-drawing is justified to protect children,” Strangio said. “But SB1 [the law in question] has taken away the only treatment that relieved years of suffering for each of the adolescent plaintiffs.”
Speaking at the press conference in Chicago, Zahara Bassett, founder and CEO of LIfe is Work, a trans-led social services agency on the West Side, shared how the hormone therapy she started at 17 years old shaped her life for the better.
“If those interventions were not available to me at the time, I wouldn’t be able to live in the way I am,” Bassett said. “I would be sick, out here homeless, probably on the street somewhere, hooked on drugs or many other things because of society not allowing me to be authentically me. This case and its ruling is deeply hurting our community and can deeply affect those young people who are coming into their selves.”
The Chicago press conference was held in front of the American Medical Association (AMA) building because of the organization’s supportive stance on gender-affirming healthcare, said Andy Thayer, co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network.
In 2021, the AMA took a stance against states imposing bans on gender-affirming care by stating “governmental intrusion into the practice of medicine” is “detrimental to the health of transgender and gender-diverse children and adults.”
“So Republican legislators can say that they care about people, but clearly they do not, according to the best medical advice in the country today,” Thayer said. “These anti-trans laws are anti-medicine.”
But advocates should also hold Democrats accountable to the trans community, Thayer said.
Thayer criticized the Democratic Party for failing to adequately defend transgender people in the wake of the onslaught of anti-trans ads run by President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans leading up to the election.
“This is a bipartisan problem here, and we will oppose any politician who does not forthrightly and explicitly defend trans people at this time of peril in our country,” Thayer said.
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