{"id":1186787,"date":"2023-08-22T19:57:39","date_gmt":"2023-08-22T19:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theintercept.com\/?p=442186"},"modified":"2023-08-22T19:57:39","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T19:57:39","slug":"alabama-trans-health-care-ruling-is-a-worrying-omen-for-a-future-scotus-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2023\/08\/22\/alabama-trans-health-care-ruling-is-a-worrying-omen-for-a-future-scotus-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Alabama Trans Health Care Ruling is a Worrying Omen for a Future SCOTUS Decision"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"FILE\n

A person holds up a sign reading “Trans People Belong in Alabama” during a rally outside the Statehouse in Montgomery, Ala., on International Transgender Day of Visibility on March 31, 2023.<\/p>\n

\nPhoto: Kim Chandler\/AP<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p>\n\n\n<\/p>\n

\n\n\n

Three Trump-appointed<\/u> federal judges ruled<\/a> on Monday to allow one of the country\u2019s harshest bans on gender-affirming care for minors to go into effect. In Alabama, a doctor who treats a trans person under 19 years old with puberty blockers or hormones could now face felony charges carrying up to 10 years in prison.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision reverses an injunction that temporarily blocked the health care ban and stands at odds<\/a> with the majority of federal court decisions on the issue so far. The disturbing ruling gives the clearest outline yet of the reactionary judicial logic that could be used to decimate trans peoples\u2019 right to necessary health care, should the issue be taken up by the far-right Supreme Court: the very same reasoning used to end the right to abortion.<\/p>\n\n

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Just as SCOTUS ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson that abortion was not constitutionally protected because<\/a> it was not \u201cdeeply rooted in this Nation\u2019s history and tradition,\u201d the 11th Circuit stated that parents do not have a fundamental right to direct the transition-related medical care of their children.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of these medications in general \u2014 let alone for children \u2014 almost certainly is not \u2018deeply rooted\u2019 in our nation\u2019s history and tradition,\u201d Judge Barbara Lagoa wrote, citing the Dobbs decision.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cAlthough there are records of transgender or otherwise gender nonconforming individuals from various points in history,\u201d noted the ruling, \u201cthe earliest-recorded uses of puberty blocking medication and cross-sex hormone treatment for the purposes of treating the discordance between an individual\u2019s biological sex and sense of gender identity did not occur until well into the twentieth century.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That is, trans youths have no right to the medicine they need because that medicine is not hundreds of years old. The decision also implies that the same logic could also be used to find bans on adult trans health care unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

To demand that unenumerated rights be \u201cdeeply rooted\u201d in U.S. \u201chistory and tradition\u201d is, after all, to insist that only the rights of propertied white men are recognized as fundamental.<\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n

The deployment of Dobbs to deny established civil rights comes as no surprise. When Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito\u2019s draft decision overturning Roe v. Wade leaked<\/a>, it was clear that the \u201chistory and tradition\u201d standard would be invoked again to hack away at an array of rights and legal precedents hard won in the last century.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To demand that unenumerated rights be \u201cdeeply rooted\u201d in U.S. \u201chistory and tradition\u201d is, after all, to insist that only the rights of propertied white men are recognized as fundamental \u2014 as Alito and his Christo-nationalist allies<\/a> well know. The AR-15 assault weapon was only invented \u201cwell into the twentieth century\u201d too, but we can be sure that such an argument from history would do little to aid gun control advocates in court. Too much is at stake in our collective struggle for bodily autonomy<\/a> to entertain the fantasy that pointing out right-wing hypocrisy undermines right-wing rule.<\/p>\n\n

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<\/p>\n

When the first trans youth health care bans were heard by federal courts this past year, it was heartening that judges in state after state saw the bans for what they are <\/a>\u2014 at odds with scientific consensus, ideologically driven, discriminatory, and likely unconstitutional \u2014 and blocked them. Even in some notoriously conservative courts, federal judges from Florida to Kentucky to Arkansas agreed that arguments treating youth gender-affirming care as untested and dangerous are simply not based in fact. Only one other federal court, the 6th Circuit, has reversed an injunction and permitted a ban on trans youth health care to go through, in Tennessee.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

With the circuits split on the issue, it is ever more likely that a case will soon go before the Supreme Court. The 11th Circuit ruling gives a chilling taste of what a SCOTUS decision could look like: poorly argued and drenched in the sort of authoritarian dogma that the nation\u2019s highest court is known to embrace.<\/p>

The post Alabama Trans Health Care Ruling is a Worrying Omen for a Future SCOTUS Decision<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on The Intercept<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals pulled from Dobbs v. Jackson to argue trans health care isn\u2019t \u201cdeeply rooted” in history.<\/p>\n

The post Alabama Trans Health Care Ruling is a Worrying Omen for a Future SCOTUS Decision<\/a> appeared first on The Intercept<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1764,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,6145],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186787"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1764"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1186787"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186787\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1196331,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1186787\/revisions\/1196331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1186787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1186787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1186787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}