Our bodies, their choice

Joseph Fons holding a Pride Flag, runs in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building after the Court issued a landmark 6-3 decision affirming that the prohibition on sex discrimination in Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 extends to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity./photo Tom Brenner

The Supreme Court and the attack on trans kids: It was never about bathrooms, it was never about fountains. It is about our bodies, our choices, our lives.

"Our bodies, their choice" By Gabriel Haaland was originally published by 48Hills on 12/5/2024

On the heels of the worst anti-trans election campaign ever, in which the Trump campaign used transgender people to pit the voters against Kamala Harris, the conservative wing of the Supreme Court, three of whom were handpicked by Trump, is set to ignore the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution, and uphold a ban on gender-affirming health care for trans youth.

On Wednesday, Dec. 4, the Court heard oral arguments on Senate Bill 1, the Tennessee legislation that bans affirming care. This is the first time this issue has come before this court.

Over the last few years, the issue has been front and center, particularly in the South, and 25 other states have passed bans on gender affirming care. Out of the 300,000 high school-aged transgender youth, 118,000 live in the 26 states that have enacted bans, regardless of parental consent and medical recommendation.

Of the 26 states, 24 have banned puberty blockers and hormones, and these laws often threaten parents and medical providers even with imprisonment for medically treating transgender youth.

The playbook that these legislators, activists, and strategists are using to instigate cultural wars through anti-trans and gender-affirming bans are similar to those used to attack reproductive rights and a person’s right to choose. At heart, the right-wing groups, strategists and politicians do not want women to have the right to choose whether to have a baby and have control over their own body—and they certainly do not want a transgender person to exert control over their own body and their reproductive choices.

Bodily autonomy and reproductive choice are at the heart of the issue.

This point became crystal clear during oral arguments, when the attorney for Tennessee said that the state’s interests were harmed when a “girl” takes testosterone to “become a boy” because “she” becomes infertile.

Their takeaway? Our bodies, their choice.

Some have asked why it was important to give trans teenagers, their parents and their doctors the right to treat them before they are 18 with puberty blockers or sometimes hormones. The case for puberty blockers and hormones is dramatic. Recent studies have found that receipt of puberty blockers can dramatically reduce risk of suicidality—in some cases by more than 70 percent—among transgender youth, compared to those who were unable to access desired treatment.

Just to be clear, Trump has made all kinds of wild and untruthful allegations about young transgender people, but children do not medically transition. Children are not given hormones. They are accepted, loved, and cherished for who they are. There can be haircuts, changes in clothes, pronoun changes, but there are no hormonal treatments.

When they reach puberty, with a consultation with their doctor, a family and the youth may decide to use puberty blockers to give them more time to decide. But Trump has threatened to prosecute any doctor or parent who treats their child, and many states agree with him.

Moreover a recent study published in Nature Human Behavior confirms what many in the LGBTQ+ community have long feared: These anti-trans legislation efforts are directly linked to a staggering increase in suicide attempts among transgender and nonbinary youth. The Trevor Project’s research reveals suicide attempts among these young people surged by as much as 72 percent in states where harmful, discriminatory legislation was passed.

As for many in the trans community, this issue is very personal to me. I was a trans kid, and expressed to my parent that I was a boy when I was four years old. I drew picture stories of myself as a boy, mostly as a pirate with a dog.

When my parent realized that I considered myself a boy, she tore up my drawings and immediately began a long campaign of intense gender harassment. Her effort to convert me into a girl for the next ten years gathered in intensity until it became so violent at puberty that I ran away from home at the age of 14, never to return.

Like many, I know what it means for a trans youth to experience a hostile environment during their formative years, and even worse to endure the torture of not being able to transition. I am familiar with the impacts of these legislative decisions and why it matters that children are accepted and loved for what they are.

While most say it will be likely that the Court will uphold the ban on gender affirming care for trans youth, there was one very small glimmer of hope. During a line of questioning by Justice Amy Coney Barrett about de jure discrimination, she was surprised to learn of the cross-dressing laws and the military ban on transgender people, leaving some hopeful that she might play a pivotal role in the decision making on this case as she has done in the past.

There is no question that these efforts will also lead to attempts to bans on care for adults as well, like the right-wing attempts to take reproductive choice away from teenagers led to more extreme bans. In fact, during a line of questioning by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, she asked the attorney for Tennessee if given their logic, the state could block gender affirming laws for adults. He replied that the state could and that “democracy is the best check on potentially misguided laws.”

Justice Sotomayor flung back that “when you’re 1 percent of the population or less, [it’s] very hard to see how the democratic process is going to protect you.”

Trump also campaigned on bans for care for adults.

The implications of this case are far ranging, and while some may hope that the right-wing groups will be satisfied with winning on this issue, that belief is unjustified. They will be emboldened by this victory, and with each subsequent victory their aims will increase. We are fighting for our lives, and this is the first fight. It was never about bathrooms, it was never about fountains. It is about our bodies, our choices, our lives.

Gabriel Haaland is a former president of the Harvey Milk LGBTQ Democratic Club and a member of Queers 4 Voting Rights, a pro-democracy antiracist inclusive queer group in Asheville, NC.