Proponents of transgender procedures on children made three stunning admissions on Wednesday as they argued against a Tennessee law protecting children from the irreversible procedures before the Supreme Court.
The admissions — that cross-sex hormones can cause infertility, that people regret the procedures, and that transgender procedures aren’t associated with lower suicide rates — undercut leftist activists’ core arguments that the procedures are necessary and lifesaving.
These revelations were made as justices heard oral arguments in the case brought by the Biden administration and the ACLU against Tennessee for a law that shields children from transgender procedures like puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
The outcome of the case could have nationwide implications and affect the over two dozen states that passed similar laws. The ACLU and the Biden administration argue that Tennessee’s law is a violation of the Equal Protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
During arguments, Justice Brett Kavanaugh pressed Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar about the side effects of putting children on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
“I want to acknowledge gender-affirming care with respect to hormones can have some impacts on fertility,” Prelogar said in response to Kavanaugh. “With respect to hormone use, there are effects on fertility.”
She then claimed that a lower court “found” that “many individuals who are transgender” can maintain their fertility.
“There are measures they can undertake and they have to be counseled on those risks. As I said before, I can understand that could be a hard tradeoff but it’s not unique to this care,” she asserted.
Cross-sex hormones have been shown to cause infertility, deadly blood clots, heart attacks, increased cancer risks of the breasts and ovaries, liver dysfunction, worsening psychological illness, and other serious conditions.
Later, during arguments, ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio, a woman who identifies as a man, admitted that the data on suicide and transgender procedures wasn’t as clear as pro-transgender activists have previously claimed. Proponents of transgender ideology have claimed that so-called “gender-affirming care” is life-saving, and told parents that they can either have a living child with the treatments or a dead child without.
This claim was referenced by Justice Sonia Sotomayor, but Justice Samuel Alito pressed Strangio on the link to suicide and what the available data showed.
Strangio first claimed that it was “clearly established in the science” that the medications reduced the risk of suicide.
In response, Alito pointed to research from the Cass Review produced by the NHS in the United Kingdom that said that “there is no evidence that gender-affirming treatments reduce suicide.”
Strangio replied by saying that “there is no evidence in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide” but claimed that the procedures would reduce suicidal thoughts.
Recent research has shown that, contrary to these claims, transgender procedures can actually increase the likelihood that minors will attempt suicide.
During oral arguments, both Strangio and Prelogar admitted that there are people who regret undergoing transgender procedures. They both claimed that this was a “smaller” number of people than “those who benefit and find it medically necessary.”
This would contradict a growing movement of “detransitioners” who have come out and opposed transgender procedures on children.
Chloe Cole, who was put on cross-sex hormones, puberty blockers, and had a double mastectomy as a teenager, has become one of the most outspoken advocates against transgender procedures on women.
“This case really means everything to me,” Cole told The Daily Wire before the case, “because if a law like this were in place in my state while I was growing up, if this were just federally banned across the board when I was going through this, this never would have happened to me.”
After the arguments wrapped, analysts predicted that the Court would likely not overturn Tennessee’s protections.
