Weekend Plug-in 🔌

Editor’s note: Every Friday, “Weekend Plug-in” meets readers at the intersection of faith and news. Click to join nearly 10,000 subscribers who get this column delivered straight to their inbox. Got feedback or ideas? Email Bobby Ross Jr.

(ANALYSIS) Transgender rights emerged as a key factor in the 2024 race for the White House.

President-elect Donald Trump successfully used Vice President Kamala Harris’ 2019 support for taxpayer-funded surgery for transgender inmates against her.

The issue became “a powerful force that — along with voters’ concern about inflation and immigration — worked in Republicans’ favor and against Harris,” as the Wall Street Journal details: 

The issue has moved like a wildfire in recent years, roiling high-school and college sports, the Olympics, local school boards and state legislatures. As the 2024 general election approached, it forcefully entered the national political stage, as Republican candidates in places like Texas and Michigan flooded the airwaves with advertising attacking supporters of transgender rights.

In the 2024 election cycle, campaigns and their backers spent nearly $123 million on TV ads referencing transgender athletes, according to ad-tracking firm AdImpact. 

It worked. Data from AP VoteCast, a survey measuring attitudes among the electorate, showed that half of American voters overall, and eight in 10 Trump voters, said support for transgender rights in government and society had gone “too far.” 

This week, the debate moved to the U.S. Supreme Court, which heard arguments in U.S. v. Skrmetti — “the most high-profile case of its term,” according to The Associated Press. Or, as Pieter Valk characterizes it at Christianity Today, it’s “the first meaningful transgender-issue case to reach the highest court in our land.”

The issue, as the independent SCOTUSBlog summarizes it:

Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,” violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Religion figures heavily in how millions of Americans perceive transgender questions.

“Much of the discussion I've seen related to the U.S. v. Skrmetti case has dived directly into arguments over whether the state of Tennessee is imposing its own religious beliefs — or at least morality — on those seeking hormones and/or surgeries for minors … to change their sex characteristics,” said Kenneth Pybus, a First Amendment attorney and journalism professor at Abilene Christian University in Texas. 

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“And I think the biblical question is a legitimate one — what does it mean when Genesis tells us that God made mankind male and female?” added Pybus, a former member of the Harpeth Hills Church of Christ in Brentwood, Tennessee. That’s the home congregation of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, the named defendant in the Supreme Court case.

But liberal as well as conservative theology was evident Wednesday as religious supporters and opponents of transgender rights rallied outside the Supreme Court Building.

Religion News Service’s Jack Jenkins explains:

The protests took the form of dueling rallies separated by barricades, with demonstrators who support transgender rights — including a number of Jewish and mainline Protestant religious leaders and activists — outnumbering their opponents outside the court by a significant margin.

Across the street in front of the United Methodist Building, demonstrators representing organizations such as the National Council of Jewish Women, Keshet and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs huddled together holding signs that read “God loves trans kids” and “trans Jews belong here.”

On the other side, Tennessee state Rep. Chris Todd, who is Baptist and a Republican, told RNS efforts to enshrine transgender rights were “a rebellion against God more than anything else.” The Tennessee law protects children from “life altering surgeries that are not necessary,” Todd argues.

Inside the courtroom, much of the two-plus hours of arguments focused on the medical issue — and whether parents have a right to seek the treatment they want for their children.

“Most major medical associations support the treatments they call ‘gender-affirming care’ to address gender dysphoria in children and teens, saying it addresses the psychological harms faced by such minors,” Pybus noted in an email. “And many filed amicus briefs in opposition to the Tennessee law. But several recent studies have indicated the justification for the hormones and surgeries for such children is weak and inconclusive, and several European countries have joined 23 U.S. states in banning or limiting the practice.”

But as is usually the case in matters of constitutional law, the question before the court is more esoteric, according to Pybus:

The Biden Administration and the American Civil Liberties Union, which is representing three Tennessee teens seeking to transition, are arguing that the Tennessee law passed last year, SB1, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by unlawfully discriminating based on sex. Under Equal Protection jurisprudence, sex is considered a “quasi-suspect” class, which means the state must meet a higher bar — called intermediate scrutiny — to justify the regulation if it's determined the law discriminates based on sex. Tennessee would have to show the law is substantially tied to achieving an important state interest and that the bans are substantially related to that goal. In that case, it would have to address the scientific data about the harms and benefits of the treatments.

But the state of Tennessee says that's not necessary because the law does not discriminate on the basis of sex because it treats both boys and girls the same, prohibiting gender transition treatments regardless of sex. It simply regulates medical conditions for which the treatments in question are allowed. 

The Deseret News’ Kelsey Dallas offers three takeaways on the oral arguments.

Although a decision isn’t expected until next June, the court’s conservative majority seems inclined to back the Tennessee law, Christianity Today’s Harvest Prude reports. See additional coverage by AP, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times and the Washington Post. 

Surprisingly, though, one closely watched justice, Neil Gorsuch, remained silent, the Wall Street Journal notes. The conservative justice wrote the June 2020 opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination against transgender employees.

A final detail to consider: The incoming Trump administration could disavow the Biden White House’s position on Tennessee's law. That would add a wrinkle to the case but not necessarily end it.

Inside The Godbeat

In just a few weeks, we’ll publish our popular annual column highlighting the year’s best religion journalism.

Here’s how it works: Godbeat pros share their favorite or most important story they produced during the past 12 months.

Hint, hint: If you’re one of those pros, I’d love to hear from you.

The Final Plug

Is the future of Christmas movies faith-based?

On Religion Unplugged’s latest podcast, culture editor Jillian Cheney and film critic Joseph Holmes “discuss why there hasn't been a Christmas classic in 20 years, the rise of Christmas action movies and whether ‘The Best Christmas Pageant Ever’ signals the start of a faith-based renaissance in the holiday film genre.”

Happy Friday, everyone! Enjoy the weekend.

Bobby Ross Jr. writes the Weekend Plug-in column for Religion Unplugged and serves as editor-in-chief of The Christian Chronicle. A former religion writer for The Associated Press and The Oklahoman, Ross has reported from all 50 states and 18 nations. He has covered religion since 1999.