On 6/19/2025 10:54 AM, AlleyCat wrote:
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5359294-trump-extends-tiktok-
divestment-deadline/
Trump always chickens out.
Isn't this, like, violating the Law?!!
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5356897-supreme-court-tennessees-youth-transgender/
Trump wins again.
The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee’s ban on puberty
blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors in a 6-3
decision along ideological lines that stands to impact similar laws
passed in roughly half the country.
Rejecting a challenge mounted by the Biden administration, the high
court ruled Tennessee’s law does not amount to sex discrimination that requires a higher level of constitutional scrutiny, removing a key
line of attack that LGBTQ rights advocates have used to try to topple
similar laws.
“Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy
to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic
process,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the court’s six Republican-appointed justices.
The court’s three Democratic-appointed justices dissented, saying they would’ve held the law to heightened scrutiny.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the more exacting standard raises
questions about whether Tennessee’s law would survive. She read her
dissent aloud from the bench, which the justices reserve for
emphasizing their strong disagreements with a case.
“By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it
matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their
families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent,” Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Tennessee’s law, S.B. 1, prohibits health care providers from
administering puberty blockers or hormone therapy to transgender
minors when the medications are prescribed to help them transition.
The law, which Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed in 2023, also bans gender-transition surgeries for minors, though that provision was not
at issue before the high court. Providers who violate the law can face $25,000 civil fines for violations.
Three Tennessee families and a doctor originally sued, and the Biden administration joined them, asserting the law discriminated based on
sex in violation of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal
protection.
The high court rejected that notion, instead siding with Tennessee.
The state insisted the law distinguishes based on a treatment’s
medical purpose, not sex, and the court should defer to the
Legislature’s judgment about regulating medicine for children.
“This case carries a simple lesson: In politically contentious debates
over matters shrouded in scientific uncertainty, courts should not
assume that self-described experts are correct,” Justice Clarence
Thomas, one of the court’s leading conservatives, wrote in a separate, concurring opinion.
Tennessee’s Republican Attorney General, Jonathan Skrmetti celebrated
the court’s ruling Wednesday, saying voters’ “common sense” prevailed over “judicial activism.”
“A bipartisan supermajority of Tennessee’s elected representatives
carefully considered the evidence and voted to protect kids from
irreversible decisions they cannot yet fully understand,” Skrmetti
wrote in a statement following the ruling.
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