On Wednesday morning, the Supreme Court dropped a landmark ruling, declaring that the State of Tennessee had the right to prohibit transgender medical intervention for minors. However, MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera and her panel were expectedly appalled by the decision.
Cabrera, along with her guests, former U.S. Attorneys Barbara McQuade and Joyce Vance, did not view this ruling as a win for children’s safety, but rather a “slippery slope” for violence against transgender people:
ANA CABRERA: What does this mean for the broader transgender community, and the kind of slippery slope that could now come?
BARBARA McQUADE: Well, absolutely. Any transgender minor is now at risk because states are copycats… So I think if you are a family today with a transgender child, your child is likely at risk, if you live in a state that is hostile to transgender Americans.
The trio complained about how the implications of this ruling would affect trans rights everywhere, and painted it as a grave human rights violation.
The ruling upheld a Tennessee law that prohibited sex transition medical operations for minors. This should not be controversial– the types of altering operations that children couldn’t receive were plenty, like cosmetic enhancement surgeries. When that comparison was used, it made it abundantly clear that this ruling did nothing but continue to protect children from making decisions they may possibly regret when they are older.
Additionally, limited studies have been conducted on how hormone blockers may affect these children in their adulthood. Hormone blockers, the main topic discussed in the Supreme Court’s ruling, put a pause on puberty for gender-confused children. The risks to this type of experimental intervention were many, and should not be imposed on children.
McQuade attempted to also make the argument that this was an “equal protection” case. This was wildly untrue; an example of an equal protection case would be Brown v. Board of Education or other equal rights Supreme Court rulings. This statement implied that transgender medical procedures were a constitutional right to minors. She even despaired that this ruling would classify gender dysphoric people as second class citizens.
“Well, I think one of the things a message like this sends is that transgender people are not on an equal status with the rest of us, and I think that does give license to people to turn that sort of view into hate.” she grieved, “... I think anytime we divide our public into us versus them, into people who have the full enjoyment of rights as American citizens and those who do not, we create a second tier of citizenship.”
What right was stripped away from children, as the panel posited? There was no right being stripped from children, there was no fundamental right to alter a child’s gender, and this was not a threat to people anywhere.
The entire transcript is below. Click "expand" to read.
MSNBC’s Ana Cabrera Reports
June 18, 2025
10:32:35 AM EST
ANA CABRERA: We are back with our breaking news from the Supreme Court. The Court upholding a Tennessee law that restricts gender affirming care for minors. Lisa Rubin and Leah Lipman are back with us. Also joining us now, MSNBC legal analyst Joyce Vance and Barbara McQuade. So, Barb, this specifically affects transgender minors in the state of Tennessee, as we mentioned before the break, there are about two dozen other states here in the U.S. that also have similar laws on the books. What does this mean for the broader transgender community, and the kind of slippery slope that could now come?
BARBARA MCQUADE: Well, absolutely. Any transgender minor is now at risk because states are copycats. They see now that Tennessee has been successful, and so they are going to implement laws that copy the language here. And, you know, one thing I find incredibly noteworthy is that the court has really reflected a worldview that transgender rights are very different from gay rights in the way it interprets the statute. The statute does use the term inconsistent with sex, and nonetheless decided that this was not entitled to the heightened scrutiny that we saw in the Bostock case. So that really means that the floodgates are open for other states to follow suit and pass laws that will similarly put these restrictions in place. So I think if you are a family today with a transgender child, your child is likely at risk, if you live in a state that is hostile to transgender Americans.
CABRERA: Joyce, what's your reaction to this ruling today?
JOYCE VANCE: So, you know, I think we’ve had a great analysis so far. This is an equal protection case, and it's about whether or not the laws provide equal protection to transgender youth in Tennessee. The factual treatment that's at risk in this case is relatively modest. It involves puberty blockers and hormone treatment. We're not talking about any kind of a surgical intervention. And so the court's decision to apply a very low standard in evaluating the constitutionality of Tennessee's law doesn't bode well for what other states might decide to do. States are not only copycats, but in some areas, there's a race to the bottom where states try to outdo each other to see what kind of restrictions they can impose. Let me just read one sentence from the opinion to you. It's 118 pages long. None of us have had the chance to read it all through yet, but noting the standard that the court is using is helpful. They say as long as there's any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification, laws like Tennessee's will be permitted to stay in effect. So, bad news for people in the transgender community who wanted to seek this sort of non-surgical intervention.
CABRERA: Barb, I know you have a lot of experience when it comes to national security issues. I can't help but wonder when a decision like this comes down, do we see an uptick in violence towards the marginalized community?
MCQUADE: Well, I think one of the things a message like this sends is that transgender people are not on an equal status with the rest of us, and I think that does give license to people to turn that sort of view into hate. Now, I don't want to suggest that this is– in any way rationalizes that kind of political violence, but I think anytime we divide our public into us versus them, into people who have the full enjoyment of rights as American citizens and those who do not, we create a second tier of citizenship. And I think those people become vulnerable in many ways, not only legally, but also societally in the way that people look upon them. And so certainly it just makes them all the more vulnerable today than they were yesterday.
(...)
