U.S. v. Skrmetti: Did the trans rights movement overreach?

A rally for trans youth at a Washington church

The court has done "untold harm," as Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, "to transgender children and the parents and families who love them."

(Image credit: Reuters)

What the Supreme Court just did to transgender people "will live in infamy," said Elie Mystal in The Nation. In a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, the justices last month upheld a Tennessee law that bans minors from using hormones and puberty blockers for gender transition. The plaintiffs in U.S. v. Skrmetti, backed by the American Civil Liberties Union, argued that the law discriminates illegally on the basis of sex, because it lets a late-developing teenage "boy" take testosterone but prohibits the same treatment for a trans teen deemed a "girl" at birth. The courts' conservatives were having none of it. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts dusted off one of "the oldest legal tricks" in the bigot's playbook, explaining that the law can't be discriminatory because it bans gender dysphoria treatment for all minors, trans or cis. Similar reasoning was "used to justify Jim Crow laws" on Black and white intermarriage, said Mark Joseph Stern in Slate. How depressing, in 2025, to see this "brittle logic" used against another disfavored minority. With laws similar to Tennessee's on the books in 26 other states, the court has done "untold harm," as Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent, "to transgender children and the parents and families who love them."

Sorry, progressives, but "reality isn't unconstitutional," said Dan McLaughlin in National Review. Males and females are biologically different, and no one cries "bigotry!" when the FDA approves a breast cancer drug for use in women but not in men. As Roberts patiently explains, there's nothing in law to stop a state from approving some "medical uses" of a drug while denying others. And Tennessee has good reason to protect its children from drugs that can irreversibly damage their fertility and sexual function. This is more about culture than law, said M. Gessen in The New York Times. Skrmetti is part of a "vast backlash against trans rights" that has been building for years, and that extends "far beyond the conservative Supreme Court or the borders of the MAGA universe." In last year's election, Donald Trump's "Kamala's for they/them" ad turned some moderate voters against Kamala Harris, and many Democrats are now fretting that they went "too far" on trans rights. Exactly how is not clear: By helping young people who are tormented by their bodies find peace?

"Backlash is a risk with any social change," said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post. That's why most civil rights movements adopt an "incrementalist strategy," picking legal "fights they think they can win" while doing the slower, more important work of securing public support. In Skrmetti, conversely, trans advocates decided to "go for broke," hoping a conservative court would sign off on sex changes for under-18s even though 56% of Americans support bans on such treatments. Skrmetti was the brainchild of ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, said Andrew Sullivan in his Substack newsletter, a trans man whose stated goal is to uproot the whole notion of sex differences. He argues that gay men like me should never have fought for marriage equality, because marriage is a fundamentally violent institution, and that "a penis is not a male body part. It's just an unusual body part for a woman." Such extremism has pushed the gay and lesbian rights movement "onto thin political ice": Republican support for same-sex marriage has dropped from 55% in 2022 to 41% today. The Supreme Court's ruling to "protect vulnerable children" should force the movement to "right the ship," and work to "regain the broader public trust we have recently lost."