The legislation that has made it to the Supreme Court in the case over a Tennessee law banning puberty blockers for minors was originally prompted by reports about a clinic dedicated to performing transgender surgeries on children, according to Tennessee State Sen. Jack Johnson (R).
“Well, we were mortified to find out, Mike, in late 2022 — thanks to some great reporting by Daily Wire, Matt Walsh and his team — they reported that, in fact, there’s this prominent medical facility right here in Middle Tennessee that in fact had a … clinic dedicated to performing pediatric transgender surgeries on kids, hence the reason it’s pediatric, and also prescribing these very, very harmful drugs that can delay the development of a child’s body and certainly have longlasting medical complications,” Johnson began during a Friday interview on Breitbart News Daily.
“So naturally, people from Tennessee, from one end of the state to the other, were mortified. So the House majority leader — I serve as the Senate majority leader — he and I got together, said we have to stop this. We began working with our Attorney General, crafted a bill,” he said, noting that they were aware other states had tried to do so as well but were unable to withstand judicial scrutiny.
Johnson explained that they banned transgender surgeries on minors, and they also banned the use of cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers for the purpose of helping a child transition to the opposite gender.
“What the bill says is that a medical provider is prohibited from performing gender modification surgery, genital modification surgery on a minor for purposes of gender dysphoria or treating gender dysphoria, and we also banned the use of cross-sex hormones [and] puberty blockers for such purposes. We’re very clear to say that these drugs are often used for other medical issues that occur in kids but we did ban them for purposes of treating gender dysphoria,” he said, explaining they did this because they “very fundamentally … believe that these surgeries and the use of these drugs are harmful, and at best, the science is unsettled and undetermined, because these treatments have not been around for a long time.”
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Further, Johnson said it is telling that banning transgender surgeries on minors is not even being challenged at the Supreme Court. Rather, it is just the issue of the use of the drugs.
“What we’re saying, Mike, is that states, via the 10th Amendment and federalism and state sovereignty, should have the right to regulate these types of medical procedures, and that’s not inconsistent with what we do already in a myriad of ways,” he added.
Ultimately, Johnson said that Tennessee stands “as the test case for the nation to affirm the rights of states to protect children as they see fit.”
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