There are several problems with appealing and deferring

to the authority of the expert class. First, so-called experts

have no license to countermand the “wisdom, fairness, or

logic of legislative choices.” FCC v. Beach Communications,

Inc., 508 U. S. 307, 313 (1993). Second, contrary to the rep-

resentations of the United States and the private plaintiffs,

there is no medical consensus on how best to treat gender

dysphoria in children. Third, notwithstanding the alleged

experts’ view that young children can provide informed con-

sent to irreversible sex-transition treatments, whether

such consent is possible is a question of medical ethics that

States must decide for themselves. Fourth, there are par-

ticularly good reasons to question the expert class here, as

recent revelations suggest that leading voices in this area

have relied on questionable evidence, and have allowed ide-

ology to influence their medical guidance.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028046)

View PDF

For Immediate Release:

October 15, 2024

For press inquiries only, contact:

Amanda Priest (334) 322-5694

William Califf (334) 604-3230

(Montgomery, Ala.)—Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall today filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of a Tennessee law that protects children from irreversible sex-change procedures. The Biden-Harris administration is challenging the law, arguing that it is unconstitutional to place age limits on sex-change procedures.

“When the Biden-Harris administration sued Alabama and demanded that the state allow sex-change procedures on children, we fought back. Through court-ordered discovery, Alabama exposed a truly shocking medical, legal, and political scandal. Internal documents from the federal government and radical advocacy groups showed that the Biden-Harris administration, ‘social justice lawyers,’ and self-appointed medical ‘experts’ manipulated medical guidelines for the purpose of convincing courts to abolish age limits for sterilizing chemical treatments and surgeries for kids,” said Attorney General Marshall. “It is no wonder the Department of Justice fought so hard to shut down discovery in Alabama’s case. The administration secretly helped craft these purportedly ‘evidence-based’ guidelines and knew there was precious little evidence behind them, but still told courts to defer to them. We ask the Supreme Court to reject the administration’s cynical argument that the Constitution now mandates States like Alabama and Tennessee use those guidelines to harm children.”

The brief highlights how the Biden-Harris administration conspired with the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) and other advocacy organizations to influence guideline documents meant to be used by physicians caring for minors suffering from gender dysphoria. The brief details how senior officials at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services pressured WPATH to remove age minimums for chemical and surgical interventions and how WPATH relied on advice from “social justice lawyers” to evade evidence-based review for its guidelines. The administration has told the Supreme Court that “overwhelming evidence” supports the use of giving gender dysphoric kids “puberty blockers and hormones,” but well before it made that representation, officials at HHS acknowledged that “there is little/no evidence about children and adolescents.”

Alabama’s brief also argues that the ongoing political and medical scandal highlights the dangers of allowing courts to transfer authority from legislatures to self-appointed experts like WPATH. Such a shift does not resolve political disputes, the brief argues, but simply moves them to less transparent institutions. By granting power to these “expert” groups, courts risk turning them into tools for political agendas, which is exactly what has happened here.

Attorney General Marshall has played a critical role in the fight against the Biden-Harris administration’s push for irreversible sex-change procedures for minors, successfully defending Alabama’s law and leading briefs in support of other states’ laws. In January, the Eleventh Circuit cleared the way for Alabama’s Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act to be enforced.

The brief and supporting materials are available here: https://www.alabamaag.gov/boe-v-marshall/.

The full brief can be viewed here.

https://www.alabamaag.gov/attorney-general-marshall-files-brief-supporting-tennessees-law-protecting-children-from-sex-change-procedures/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028088)

whelming evidence” supports the use of puberty blockers

and cross-sex hormones for treating pediatric gender dys-

phoria, and that this view represents “the overwhelming

consensus of the medical community.” Pet. for Cert. 2, 7.

These claims are untenable. “[T]he concept of gender dys-

phoria as a medical condition is relatively new and the use

of drug treatments that change or modify a child’s sex char-

acteristics is even more recent.” 83 F. 4th, at 472. The

treatments at issue are subject to a rapidly evolving debate

that demonstrates a lack of medical consensus over their

risks and benefits. Under these conditions, it is imperative

that courts treat state legislation with “a strong presump-

tion of validity,” Beach Communications, 508 U. S., at 314,

and in turn protect States’ ability to enact “high-stakes

medical policies, in which compassion for the child points in both directions,” 83 F. 4th, at 472.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028055)

tious debates over matters shrouded in scientific uncer-

tainty, courts should not assume that self-described experts

are correct.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028072)

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-477/328275/20241015131826340_2024.10.15%20-%20Ala.%20Amicus%20Br.%20iso%20TN%20FINAL.pdf

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028082)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028047)

Setting aside whether sex-transition treatments for chil-

dren are effective, States may legitimately question

whether they are ethical. States have a legitimate interest

“in protecting the integrity and ethics of the medical profes-

sion.” Washington v. Glucksberg, 521 U. S. 702, 731 (1997).

And, as the United States has acknowledged, “the ‘general

ethical principles’ governing pediatric care” require the pa-

tient’s informed consent. Brief for United States 5. Mount-

ing evidence gives States reason to question whether chil-

dren are capable of providing informed consent to

irreversible sex-transition treatments, and thus whether

these treatments can be ethically administered.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028062)

Parents also may have difficulty providing informed consent to their

children’s sex-transition treatments. Reports suggest that, in medical

consultations, “[p]arents are routinely warned that to pursue any path

outside of agreeing with a child’s self-declared gender identity is to put a

gender dysphoric youth at risk for suicide, which feels to many people

like emotional blackmail.” Paul 2024, at 8; see also Eknes-Tucker v. Gov-

ernor of Ala., 114 F. 4th 1241, 1268 (CA11 2024) (Lagoa, J., concurring

in denial of rehearing en banc) (acknowledging “testimony from nine par-

ents who said that doctors, therapists, and other practitioners pressured

them to start their children on cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers

or otherwise circumvented their wishes”). States might reasonably ques-

tion whether, under such conditions, parents’ consent is valid and con-

sistent with ethical principles.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028105)

"In sadness, I dissent."

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028123)

=====

"Amici are professors of philosophy who are trained to identify flaws in arguments. Philosophers assess arguments in a variety of ways, but most relevant here is by examining the logical structure of arguments. This requires identifying the premises underlying arguments as well as the ways that arguments can attempt to hide those premises. This process is particularly useful in this case, because a central issue is whether Tennessee’s statute classifies on the basis of sex. Both sides submit competing explanations of how the statute operates with regard to sex, and dispute what level of abstraction the Court should use to assess the law. Amici submit this brief to assist the Court in analyzing the logical structure of Tennessee’s arguments on these points."

https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/23/23-477/323945/20240903152714071_Yale%20Philosophers%20Amici%20Brief.pdf

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028154)

If a law

imposes the same burden on both sexes, the argument

goes, it does not classify on the basis of sex.6

Tennessee’s argument assumes the very conclu-

sion that it claims to show. To demonstrate that its

law treats minors “equally” on the basis of sex, Ten-

nessee offers—yet again—a characterization of its

law as imposing the “same” burden on both male and

female minors. Br. in Opp. 21 (“[B]oys and girls are

treated equally. Nobody under 18 in Tennessee can

obtain puberty blockers, hormones, or surgery for the

prohibited purposes.”).

In philosophical analysis, this move is called ques-

tion-begging. “Begging the question” (petitio princi-

pii) is perhaps the best-known fallacy. Begging the

question occurs when an argument assumes the truth

of its conclusion.7 An argument that begs the ques-

tion rests on faulty reasoning because its premises

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028179)

Tennessee’s argument similarly presupposes,

without argument, that male and female minors are

not legally entitled to the same medical interventions:

Male minors can be legally prohibited from feminizing

interventions or those that slow masculinization, and

female minors can be legally prohibited from mascu-

linizing interventions or those that slow feminization,

because they each are, respectively “sex-inconsistent”

interventions.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028187)

at the oral argument, KBJ floated the idea that TN's position was like Loving v. Virginia and counsel for plaintiffs were like, "uh, yeah, i guess."

i assume that KBJ got that stupid argument from the Yale Philosphers.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028188)

i particularly hate this move of using "this move" in philosophy discourse.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028935)

Behold how the blind lead each other

The philosopher

You know so much about nothing at all

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028213)

Sotomayor, who wrote the dissent and also read it from the bench to emphasise her strong disagreement, wrote that the ban does lead to "medical discrimination on the basis of sex" and that in its ruling "the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims".

"[The Court] authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them," Sotomayor wrote.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028592)

so true.

wait, which side is Soto talking about there?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028597)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028974)

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49028934)

Just like it has a compelling interest in preventing the genital mutilation of minor children.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49029055)

https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/17mj4mp/15_year_old_ivanka_trump_sitting_on_her_fathers/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5739833&forum_id=2#49029072)