In the 2024-2025 term, the United States Supreme Court has been a battleground for our constitutionally protected rights and the defense of the most vulnerable. From First Amendment considerations to protecting minors from harm in the real world and online, our rights and protections are under extreme scrutiny. A landmark ruling in United States v. Skrmetti is no exception.
A Landmark Decision Protecting Children
On Wednesday, June 18, 2025, the United States Supreme Court by a 6-3 majority ruled in United States v. Skrmetti that a Tennessee law, prohibiting surgeries and hormone therapies for minors dealing with gender confusion does not violate the Constitution, specifically the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
This ruling is essential for protecting children from the consequences of irreversible surgeries and hormones in Tennessee, but also other states throughout America. Skrmetti clears the legal road for Wisconsin to move forward and protect our children.
The Court held that to violate the Equal Protection Clause and be subject to heightened scrutiny a law must discriminate against an individual or group based on their sex. Tennessee’s law does not discriminate on this basis but instead prohibits surgeries and hormone therapies for gender-confused minors based on age and medical use, regardless of their sex.
In his majority opinion, Chief Justice Roberts, argued:
On its face, SB 1[the TN Law] incorporates two classifications. First, SB 1 classifies on the basis of age. Healthcare providers may administer certain medical treatments to individuals ages 18 and older but not to minors. Second, SB1 classifies on the basis of medical use. Healthcare providers may administer puberty blockers or hormones to minors to treat certain conditions but not to treat gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, or gender incongruence. Classifications that turn on age or medical use are subject to only rational basis review. (605 U.S. 9 2025)
Citing prior precedent, the proponents of transgender procedures for children argued that the sex-based discrimination requirement was met in this case because sex classifications and sexual orientation are mentioned. In his concurring opinion Justice Clarence Thomas discounted this argument stating that in prior interpretations of the Equal Protection Clause, “the Court never suggested that sexual orientation discrimination is just a form of sex discrimination.”
The Court’s opinion on this issue avoids the possibility of future cases applying sex-based classifications to mere references of one’s sex or sexual orientation which grounds the law in biological reality.
Justice Thomas took the argument further by also dispelling the false claim that courts should bend to the will of so-called “medical experts” who claim that gender transition surgeries and therapies for minors are medically necessary. He provided four reasons for this opinion:
- “First, so-called experts have no license to countermand the ‘wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices.’”
- “Second, contrary to the representations 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 consent 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 particularly 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 ideology to influence their medical guidance.” (605 U.S. 5 2025)
The Court’s decision firmly places the power to protect children from harmful surgeries and therapies into the authority of the states.
Wisconsin Must Pass “Help, Not Harm” Legislation
This landmark ruling upholds the right of every state to pass laws, generally called Help Not Harm laws, that protect children from the irreversible harm of so-called “gender-affirming” care. Twenty-five states have already passed Help Not Harm legislation protecting children. Unfortunately, Wisconsin isn’t one of them.
There is one person to blame for Wisconsin not being on this list of states that are protecting children. That is Governor Evers, who vetoed a similar bill last session.
Evers and his allies continue to push the false narrative that Help Not Harm legislation somehow causes harm or denies “health care” to transgender individuals. But life-altering surgery and irreversible hormone therapy are not health care.
In Wisconsin, Democrat officials doubled down on their support for minors getting irreversible gender transition surgeries. Wisconsin’s Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) said, “Politicians shouldn’t be making health-care decisions for people, but in mistakenly failing to find a violation of the Equal Protection Clause in Skrmetti, the Supreme Court has left politicians to prohibit health-care decisions that politicians shouldn’t be involved in. With this decision, it is all the more important that policymakers protect access to critical heath care for members of the transgender community.”
Protecting children from mutilating their bodies before they are legally old enough to make decisions for themselves is not a matter of health care. State Representative Scott Allen (R-AD 82), a proponent of Help Not Harm legislation, explained, “It is incredibly important that minors be given the time they need to develop and make the right choice for them when they have the maturity to fully comprehend the risks and long-term consequences of their choices.”
Help Not Harm legislation is a matter of protecting children from making permanent decisions that many gender-confused minors grow to regret. People cannot change their biological sex no matter how many surgeries and therapies they try, and a child should never be the subject of such cruel experimentation. Every state should enshrine Help Not Harm legislation into law.
Thankfully Wisconsin’s state Assembly again passed Help Not Harm legislation earlier this year. We are confident the Wisconsin state Senate will also pass the bill. It will come down once again to Governor Evers to do the right thing by helping minors with gender dysphoria and making Help Not Harm the law of the land in Wisconsin. Governor Evers did proclaim 2025 to be the “Year of the Kid.” Now, we’ll see if he means it.
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