Nearly two months after winning a landmark Supreme Court case that cemented states’ ability to protect kids from transgender medical procedures, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti says the decision triggered a nationwide reckoning on radical gender ideology.
The case, United States v. Skrmetti, centered on a Tennessee law that prohibited doctors from performing transgender surgeries on kids and giving them puberty blockers or cross-sex hormones. Discussing the impact of the case during an interview in Nashville with The Daily Wire at the National Young Republican Convention, Skrmetti said that the case may have sounded the death knell for radical gender ideology.
“It’s almost like there was a balloon that kept getting filled up and filled up and filled up with this radical ideology. And as soon as it’s popped, all the air’s gone and everybody starts looking around and realizing, you know, maybe they did something they shouldn’t have,” he said, noting that the public’s faith in so-called medical experts had been shattered because of their promotion of transgender ideology.
“The biggest thing that surprised me is that the cultural effect, because it seems like it’s really sparked a lot of introspection about how we got to where we were, and a lot of people kind of went along with what they were hearing from experts are questioning the validity of that,” Skrmetti said.
In the years leading up to the Supreme Court clash, hospitals across the country opened gender clinics for kids, and groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association all promoted the life-altering procedures.
The ruling coincided with efforts from the Trump administration to crack down on hospitals nationwide that have performed gender procedures on kids. Skrmetti pointed out that some hospitals may now face legal repercussions for performing transgender procedures on kids.
For example, detransitioner Chloe Cole has sued the doctors who oversaw the removal of her breasts and hormone procedures, accusing them of pushing her to medically and surgically attempt to change her gender while she was struggling with mental illness and was incapable of fully consenting as a minor.
“If you give a kid a life altering procedure and it turns out that there was any coercion or that they didn’t really consent or that you were doing it knowing about risks that you didn’t disclose or whatever, that could potentially cost some of the hospitals that have done this incredible amounts of money,” Skrmetti said.
Skrimetti said that he was unaware of any hospitals in Tennessee that were not complying with state law, adding that it would be “bonkers” to do so.
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The Tennessee official added that he had expected to end up before the Supreme Court at some point during his tenure as attorney general, but that he hadn’t expected it to be such a high-profile case. The case came after the ACLU and the Biden administration sued Tennessee over the law. Tennessee was represented by Matthew Rice, the state’s solicitor general and a former professional baseball player. Skrmetti praised Rice for spending months preparing for oral arguments.
Remembering the atmosphere of the case, Skrmetti described the Supreme Court as “a really special place,” adding that “you feel the weight of history in there.”
Skrmetti added that it was surreal to be sitting so close to the justices of the court alongside Tennessee Solicitor General Matt Rice, who argued the case. He said he didn’t expect ever to have a similar experience again.
“I read about them all the time,” he said. “They’re the justices of the Supreme Court, and then all of a sudden, you’re sitting there in a case with your name on it, with Justice Gorsuch and Justice Barrett, like 10 feet away. It almost doesn’t feel real.”
Tennessee’s victory at the Supreme Court has already had legal ramifications for other states looking to shield kids from transgender procedures. Last week, a federal appeals court overturned Arkansas’s first-in-the-nation ban on such procedures, citing the Skrmetti ruling.
