ACLU Lawyer Tells Jake Tapper 2-Year-Olds Know They’re Transgender While Arguing for Transitioning Children
Chase Strangio, the ACLU lawyer arguing before the Supreme Court on Wednesday, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that children as young as two years old know that they’re transgender on Tuesday.
Strangio will tell the Court that Tennessee’s SB1 — which prevents minors from receiving puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries associated with transitioning — violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.
Speaking with Tapper, Strangio called the case a “critical inflection point for transgender people across the country” and said that “this is a law that bans medical treatment only when it is prescribed inconsistent with an individual’s sex” and is therefore unconstitutional sex discrimination.
“What do you say to physicians who are sensitive and supportive of trans kids, obviously don’t want suicidal ideation, etc., but wonder if there is enough data as of now to prove that it is beneficial to allow these sort of treatments before the age of 18?” asked Tapper.
“So I would say three things. And the first is we have decades of both clinical experience and research data showing that this is medical treatment that provides critical benefits to adolescents who need it. And so this is not new, this is not new medication,” answered Strangio. “And then the second thing I would say is nobody has to provide this medication to adolescents. These are not doctors being forced to provide this medication. These are doctors who are wanting to treat their patients in the best way that they know how, based on the best available evidence to us. And these are young people who may have known since they were two years old exactly who who they are, who suffered for six, seven years before they had any relief.”
“And what’s happening here? It’s not the kids who are consenting to this treatment. It’s the parents who are consenting to the treatment,” concluded Strangio. “And as a parent, I would say we-, when our children are suffering, we are suffering.”
Watch above via CNN.
