Gender-Affirming Care and the Dignity of Risk

Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case United States v. Skrmetti, which asks whether the state of Tennessee should be allowed to enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for youth.

Throughout arguments, several themes appeared in the questions coming from the Court’s conservative justices. One of these was the supposed risk of gender-affirming care.

“If the treatment’s barred, some kids will suffer because they can’t access the treatment. If the treatment is allowed … some kids will suffer who get the treatment and later wish they hadn’t and want to detransition,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh said. “And so there are risks both ways in here … it’s a difficult judgment call as a matter of policy.”

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Chase Strangio—who happens to be the first openly trans person to argue a case before the Supreme Court—appeared on behalf of the case’s original plaintiffs, several families and one physician. He pointed out that many of the figures about regret and detransition cited to justify bans on gender-affirming care are old, and often come from studies of very young children. At issue in Skrmetti are treatments like puberty blockers and hormones, which don’t apply to children who haven’t reached puberty.

“The evidence shows that once an adolescent reaches the onset of puberty, their likelihood to ultimately desist and identify with their birth sex is very low,” Strangio told the Court. In fact, according to more recent, better-designed studies, that rate is about one percent—or less.

But even if risks and rates of regret were higher, would banning gender-affirming care really be good policy? According to many bioethicists, the answer is no.

This is thanks to a concept called the dignity of risk, which arose from the disability rights movement in the 1970s.

“Overprotection,” wrote disability rights advocate Robert Perske in a 1972 paper, undermines a person’s “individuality and growth potential,” smothers them emotionally, and prevents them from “experiencing the normal taking risks in life which is necessary for normal human growth and development.”

Read the rest of this story at Rewire News Group.

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