The Supreme Court’s decision last week in United States v. Skrmetti will have direct consequences for many transgender minors. Tennessee’s law, which the Court upheld, prohibits people under age 18 from accessing certain kinds of treatment, such as hormones and puberty blockers, to treat gender dysphoria (the condition in which an individual’s sex does not align with their gender identity). But the consequences will be indirect as well, and reach beyond the realm of transgender rights—potentially representing a setback for gender equality and the enforcement of antidiscrimination law.
最高法院上周在美国诉SKRMETTI诉SKRMETTI的裁决将对许多跨性别未成年人产生直接影响。法院维持的田纳西州法律禁止18岁以下的人们获得某些类型的治疗方法，例如激素和青春期阻滞剂，以治疗性别烦躁不安（个人性别与性别认同不符的状况）。但是后果也将是间接的，并超越了跨性别权利的境界，这代表了性别平等和强制执行反歧视法的挫折。
The majority opinion, written by Chief Justice John Roberts and joined by the five other Republican appointees, revives an outdated case, Geduldig v. Aiello, that blessed discrimination based on archaic thinking. If the Republican appointees plan to revive this older case, they will take the law and the country back to a time when the government used the existence of “biological differences” between men and women to excuse all kinds of discrimination against women. The Court’s logic underscores the extent to which the ideology and methodology of the conservative justices threaten many of the hard-fought civil-rights protections of the 20th century.
首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨（John Roberts）撰写的多数意见并由其他五个共和党任命的人加入，复兴了一个过时的案件，Geduldigv。Aiello案，该案子基于古老的思维而有福地歧视。如果共和党的任命计划恢复这一较旧的案件，他们将把法律和国家带回政府使用男女之间存在“生物学差异”的时期，以辩解各种对妇女的歧视。法院的逻辑强调了保守派法官的意识形态和方法论的程度，威胁到20世纪艰苦的民权保护。
The key issue in Skrmetti was whether Tennessee’s law, and others like it, requires heightened constitutional scrutiny. The Court said it does not and rejected two different theories to the contrary—first, that the law discriminates on the basis of sex, and second, that the law discriminates on the basis of gender identity against trans minors.
Skrmetti的关键问题是田纳西州的法律以及其他类似的法律是否需要加强宪法审查。法院说，这不是并驳回了两种不同的理论相反，首先是根据性别歧视，其次是根据对跨性别者的性别认同来区分法律。
Roberts’s majority opinion first insisted that the law does not constitute sex discrimination because it concerns a medical procedure for minors—the law prohibits using hormones or puberty blockers to treat minors for gender dysphoria. Therefore, Roberts reasoned, the law distinguishes between persons on the basis of medical treatment and age rather than sex.
罗伯茨的多数意见首先坚持认为，该法律不构成性别歧视，因为它涉及未成年人的医疗程序，该法律禁止使用激素或青春期阻滞剂来治疗未成年人的性别烦躁不安。因此，罗伯茨认为，法律根据医疗和年龄而不是性别区分人。
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Roberts next explained that the law does not constitute discrimination on the basis of gender identity—discrimination against transgender individuals as such. The Court’s logic went as follows: Although the law restricts access to hormones and puberty blockers to treat gender dysphoria, both transgender and cisgender individuals can access these treatments for other conditions. Therefore, the Court suggested, even though transgender people are the only group negatively affected by the law, it still does not amount to discrimination against them, because they, along with cisgender individuals, can still receive hormones and puberty blockers as treatment for conditions other than gender dysphoria. (In a concurring opinion, Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito indicated that even if a law did specifically and overtly discriminate on the basis of transgender status, they still would not subject the law to heightened scrutiny.)
罗伯茨接下来解释说，该法律并不构成基于性别认同的歧视，即对跨性别者的歧视。法院的逻辑如下：尽管法律限制了对荷尔蒙和青春期阻滞剂治疗性别烦躁不安的机会，但跨性别者和sisgender个人都可以在其他情况下使用这些治疗方法。因此，法院建议，即使变性人是唯一受法律影响的群体，但它仍然不构成对他们的歧视，因为他们与sisgender个人一起仍然可以接受激素和青春期阻滞剂作为针对性别吞咽困难以外的其他条件的待遇。（在同意的意见中，大法官艾米·康尼·巴雷特（Amy Coney Barrett），克拉伦斯·托马斯（Clarence Thomas）和塞缪尔·阿利托（Samuel Alito）表示，即使法律根据跨性别的地位进行了专门和公开的歧视，他们仍然不会对法律进行加强审查。）
As support for the majority’s claims, the Court cited Geduldig v. Aiello, a 1974 case about sex discrimination that somewhat infamously concluded that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy does not constitute discrimination on the basis of sex. The case concerned California’s disability-insurance program, which excluded coverage for any disabilities arising from pregnancy. Sure, the Geduldig Court acknowledged, the group excluded from the disability-insurance program by the pregnancy-discrimination provision included only women. But the group of people who could access the state’s disability-compensation benefits for reasons other than pregnancy included both women and men. “The program divides potential recipients into two groups—pregnant women and nonpregnant persons. While the first group is exclusively female, the second includes members of both sexes,” the Court wrote. In other words, the law didn’t exclude all women from coverage, just those women who were unable to work because of pregnancy.
作为对多数人主张的支持，法院引用了Geduldig诉Aiello案，这是1974年关于性别歧视的案件，有些臭名昭著地得出结论认为，基于怀孕的歧视并不构成基于性别的歧视。该案件涉及加利福尼亚的残疾人保险计划，该计划不包括怀孕引起的任何残疾覆盖范围。当然，Geduldig法院承认，该小组仅由怀孕歧视规定排除在残疾人保险计划之外，仅包括妇女。但是，由于怀孕以外的其他原因，可以使用该州的残疾补偿益处的人群包括男女。法院写道：“该计划将潜在的接收者分为两组：怀孕的妇女和未怀孕的人。虽然第一组是女性，但第二组包括两性的成员。”换句话说，法律并没有将所有妇女排除在覆盖范围之外，只是那些因怀孕而无法工作的妇女。
Geduldig also gestured to the idea that pregnancy reflects an objective biological condition, which, the all-male justices explained, made the law legitimate and meant that the law was not a form of discrimination. “Normal pregnancy,” the justices opined, “is an objectively identifiable physical condition with unique characteristics.” At the time Geduldig was decided, laws that explicitly and specifically discriminated on the basis of sex were not subject to heightened judicial scrutiny. The courts instead excused and explained away the discrimination by invoking the biological differences between men and women—legitimate reasons for legitimate discrimination.
Geduldig还示意了怀孕反映客观生物学状况的观念，全男性法官解释说，法律使法律合法，这意味着法律不是歧视的一种形式。法官认为，“正常怀孕是一种具有独特特征的客观识别的物理状况。”当时，盖杜尔迪格（Geduldig）被裁定，根据性别明确和专门歧视的法律没有受到司法审查的高度审查。相反，法院通过援引男性和女性之间的生物学差异来原谅并解释了歧视，这是合法歧视的基础原因。
Many observers of constitutional law thought, until recently, that Geduldig had been consigned to history. The decision was viewed as an anomaly and outdated not only because of its reasoning, but also because it had been whittled away and rejected by both Congress and the Supreme Court. Congress overturned the result in Geduldig when, in 1978, it designated pregnancy discrimination as a species of sex discrimination. The Supreme Court also declined to apply Geduldig in cases where states sought to invoke biological differences between men and women to excuse discrimination against women. For example, in United States v. Virginia, the Court rejected the argument that Virginia could maintain a men’s-only military-leadership academy because the state insisted that women, due to their biology, could not conform to the school’s rigorous methods. Although Congress, by statute, prohibited pregnancy discrimination in employment, that did not change the Constitution. Similarly, although the justices weakened or ignored Geduldig, they never outright overruled it. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called for Geduldig to be formally overruled, perhaps recognizing that the Court’s failure to do so left the decision available to be invoked in the future to protect other discrimination.
直到最近，许多宪法观察者都认为，盖杜尔吉（Geduldig）已被委托给历史。该决定被视为一种异常现象，不仅因为其推理而过时，而且还因为它被国会和最高法院拒绝并拒绝了。国会推翻了Geduldig的结果，当时1978年将怀孕歧视指定为一种性别歧视。最高法院还拒绝在州试图援引男性和妇女之间的生物学差异以辩解妇女的情况下申请Geduldig。例如，在美国诉弗吉尼亚州诉弗吉尼亚州，法院驳回了这样的论点，即弗吉尼亚州可以维持只有男子的军事领导学院，因为国家坚持认为妇女由于其生物学而无法符合学校的严格方法。尽管国会根据法规，禁止在就业方面的怀孕歧视，但这并没有改变宪法。同样，尽管大法官削弱或忽略了Geduldig，但他们从未彻底否决它。大法官露丝·巴德·金斯堡（Ruth Bader Ginsburg）呼吁正式否决Geduldig，也许认识到法院未能做到这一点，将来可以援引以下决定以保护其他歧视。
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In Skrmetti, the Court dropped even more hints that it is open to green-lighting more sex discrimination. Roberts’s majority opinion acknowledged that “a law that classifies on the basis of sex may fail heightened scrutiny”—but, it continued, the law would fail only “if the classifications rest on impermissible stereotypes,” as opposed to permissible ones such as those rooted in biological differences (emphasis added).
在Skrmetti中，法院提出了更多的暗示，即它开放的是绿色的性别歧视。罗伯茨的多数观点承认，“根据性别进行分类的法律可能会不佳审查”，但继续，它继续，法律只有“如果分类基于不允许的刻板印象，而不是允许的刻板印象”，而不是像生物学差异的那些（强调）。
The Republican-appointed justices have now indicated that Geduldig is making a comeback. When the Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade, Alito’s majority opinion invoked Geduldig to declare that abortion restrictions do not amount to sex discrimination. Such restrictions, Alito wrote, are about a medical procedure tied to the biological differences between men and women.
共和党任命的法官现在表明，盖杜尔迪格（Geduldig）正在卷土重来。当最高法院推翻了Roe诉Wade案时，Alito的多数意见援引Geduldig宣布堕胎限制并不等于性别歧视。阿里托（Alito）写道，这种限制是关于与男女生物学差异有关的医疗程序。
By invoking Geduldig, the Roberts Court is doing what the Supreme Court of earlier eras did: supplying tortured legal logic to justify long-standing hierarchies. In Plessy v. Ferguson, for example, the Court insisted that laws that required white and Black individuals to ride in different train cars were not impermissible racial discrimination—the rules applied to and burdened everyone, after all. That logic sounds like the thread in Skrmetti that maintains that bans on gender-affirming care don’t constitute gender-identity discrimination because the bans allow transgender and cisgender kids to access hormones and puberty blockers—just not for treatment of gender dysphoria. In Korematsu v. United States, the Court claimed that the internment of Americans of Japanese descent did not constitute racial discrimination; the policy was about national security. That reasoning tracks with Skrmetti’s insistence that the health-care bans do not discriminate on the basis of sex or gender identity; they are about age and medical procedures.
罗伯茨法院通过援引Geduldig，正在采取最高法院以前的时代所做的事情：提供折磨的法律逻辑以证明长期存在的等级制度。例如，在Plessy诉Ferguson诉Ferguson案中，法院坚持认为，要求白人和黑人乘坐不同火车的法律不是不允许的种族歧视 - 毕竟，规则适用和负担所有人。这种逻辑听起来像是Skrmetti中的线程，该线程认为禁止性别肯定的护理并不构成性别认同歧视，因为禁令允许跨性别者和sisgender Kids能够访问激素和青春期阻滞剂，而不是用于治疗性别吞咽困难。在Korematsu诉美国案中，法院声称，对日本血统的美国人的拘留并不构成种族歧视。该政策是关于国家安全的。Skrmetti坚持认为医疗保健禁令不会基于性别或性别认同来歧视的推理轨道；他们大约是年龄和医疗程序。
The decisions in Plessy and Korematsu are rightly reviled today. Geduldig should be as well. Instead, the country has a Court that is turning to it as precedent, repurposing it to justify a new era of legal discrimination.
今天，Plessy和Korematsu的决定被正确地谴责了。Geduldig也应该是。取而代之的是，该国有一个法院将其作为先例，重新利用它以证明法律歧视的新时代是合理的。
