Justice Sonia Sotomayor asks how Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice’s claims protect the public, pointing out that “when you’re 1% of the population, it’s very hard to see how the democratic process will protect you.”
The decision of the Court has the potential to also influence gender-affirming care for adults with their ruling, if they accept Tennessee’s logic about the possible medical risks, that reasoning could be used in further arguments to restrict all forms of care.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett asks how Rice’s policies would apply to bathrooms or sports issues. He tries to argue that a transgender-based challenge is separate from a sex-based challenge — in other words, this case is about medical risks of transgender healthcare whereas bathroom and sports arguments are about gender rights and equity. As such, Rice gave minimal rationale for how this argument may be structured.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson asks how the gender-affirming care ban can even exist when it has so many parallels to racist laws of the past, pointing out that they’re doing a similar thing: denying access to a public service based on personal characteristics.
Rice tries to argue that gender-affirming care (like hormone replacement therapy and puberty blockers) are different medical treatments on the basis of why it’s being asked for — that is, the use of both treatments are different based on whether they’re being given to a cisgender child or a transgender one.
Jackson points out that the treatments are acting on the body in the same way, and that Rice is contradicting his initial argument about the treatments being dangerous to minors when he goes on to argue that they have different effects on the body depending on your gender identity.