Republican-led states across the country are urging the Supreme Court to allow Idaho to enforce its ban on transgender medical treatments for children, issuing a fact-filled take-down of the burgeoning industry that cites The Daily Wire’s reporting to the high court.
Nineteen Republican attorneys general told the Supreme Court that it would be a “devastating medical scandal” if Idaho was not allowed to protect children from transgender procedures in a Wednesday legal filing that takes aim at the transgender medical industry.
Led by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, the attorneys general filed a 36-page amicus brief in support of Idaho’s petition to the Supreme Court to allow it to broadly enforce its ban on giving children life-altering puberty blockers and transgender surgeries. The briefing argues that so-called “gender-affirming care” for children is dangerous, irreversible, and being pushed for ideological and financial reasons — highlighted in the brief, in fact, is the admission by officials at Vanderbilt University’s hospital that transgender surgeries are “huge money makers,” which was first exposed by Daily Wire host Matt Walsh.
A federal judge ruled in December, days before Idaho’s law was set to take effect, that it violated the 14th Amendment, blocking the state from enforcing any aspect of the bill. It filed an emergency motion to the Supreme Court on Tuesday challenging the lower court’s decision, in which the judge claimed that the outlawed medical treatments were “safe, effective, and medically necessary for some adolescents.”
Wednesday’s brief from the attorneys general, however, highlights the medical complications children face from transgender procedures and says that the lower court’s decision “puts children’s health and safety in danger.”
The Supreme Court has never issued a ruling regarding bans on transgender medical treatments for children, though several federal appeals courts have upheld laws similar to Idaho’s. Leftist groups such as the ACLU have asked the Supreme Court to strike down similar laws after losing challenges to them in appeals courts, but it is still yet to weigh in.
The amicus brief to the court says that the states supporting Idaho’s appeal “are concerned that a devastating medical scandal is at hand.”
“[T]he medical establishment’s fast-tracking of vulnerable youth suffering from gender dysphoria — and, almost always, a host of other psychiatric ailments — for hormonal and surgical sex-modification procedures that can leave them sterilized and permanently harmed,” the brief says. “In response, over twenty States have joined Idaho in generally requiring children to reach the age of majority before undergoing medicalized sex-change procedures.”
Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia all signed onto the brief. A decision to allow enforcement of Idaho could indicate where it would rule on other ongoing challenges to the other state bans.
The brief blasted the district court for relying on “activist-drafted” guidelines on transgender procedures. In his decision, District Judge B. Lynn Winmill pointed to guidelines from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health that claim that children can be subjected to transgender procedures.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE DAILYWIRE+ APP
Repeatedly referenced throughout the brief were the health risks of putting children on cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers. These two procedures can damage a child’s bone development and cognitive function as well as future fertility.
Winmill is lambasted by the Republican officials for his suggestion that a “neophallus” surgery, a procedure where tissue from a woman’s clitoris is used to fashion a faux-penis, was “freely available” to children who do not identify as transgender.
The brief argues that the decision to block Idaho’s law was compromised by the financial interests of activist medical societies such as the one cited in Winmill’s decision.
“The court was obviously wrong to outsource the regulation of medical procedures to interest groups whose members are financially dependent on providing the procedures at issue; the Constitution puts States, not medical societies, in charge of regulation for a reason,” the brief says.
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador filed his petition before the court on Friday with support from lawyers with the Alliance Defending Freedom. The petition, addressed to Justice Elena Kagan, is expected to be discussed by the full court.