Last week, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem joined South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster and eight other governors in submitting an amici curiae brief, also known as a friend-of-the-court brief, to the US Supreme Court defending parental rights and protecting children in the United States v. Skrmetti case. This case deals with the constitutionality of Tennessee’s “Help Not Harm” law, passed in 2023, which “prohibits physicians from performing or providing gender-reassignment surgeries, puberty-blocking drugs, and cross-sex hormones to minors.” This Supreme Court case has immense implications for every state, including South Dakota, that has passed any form of “Help Not Harm” legislation. So far, 25 states have enacted protections against transgender procedures for minors.
“South Dakota’s kids are our future, and I will always stand up for the next generation of South Dakotans,” Governor Noem said in a press release. “The Biden-Harris Administration intervened in this case, but the federal government has no business forcing states to perform harmful, irreversible, and unscientific medical procedures on children.”
Shortly after Tennessee passed Senate Bill 1 (SB1), the Department of Justice, at the behest of the Biden-Harris administration, attempted to “short-circuit” the legislation by blocking it in the courts. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti appealed to the US Supreme Court to affirm SB1’s constitutionality. The case will be heard this term, starting in December.
“Since the founding, States have governed the practice of medicine within their borders. States license doctors. They restrict medical practices. And they exercise ‘broad police powers in regulating the administration of drugs,’” Skrmetti’s 58-page filing with the Court reads. “This case concerns an exercise of that power: Tennessee’s attempt to protect minors from the life-altering risks of uncertain gender-transition interventions.”
The brief details the rapid rise in “gender-transition interventions” for minors, the dangers of using these experimental, irreversible, and medically unnecessary procedures, and how SB1 enacts safeguards to help, not harm, children. It further illustrates the long history of states regulating the medical industry and why this legislation fully aligns with the Constitution.
In 2023, South Dakota became the second state to protect minors from gender transitions when Governor Noem signed House Bill 1080 into law, which was overwhelmingly approved by the House and Senate. Learn more about this important legislation here.
This case comes on the heels of a groundbreaking database from medical nonprofit watchdog Do No Harm which revealed that 225 hospitals across the nation have performed sex-change surgeries and/or administered hormone therapy to over 14,000 children since 2019. It’s time to put an end to these dangerous procedures. Eleven studies have confirmed that 80% of transgender children will outgrow their gender dysphoria when they reach adulthood. Despite the Left’s resistance to this fact, gender dysphoria is just a phase for the majority of transgender children. Allowing confused kids to undergo irreversible and life-threatening surgeries is short-sighted and cruel.
States can and should enact legislation to protect children from medical mutilation at the hands of politically motivated medical professionals. We’re glad that our governor was one of many to stand up for “Help Not Harm” legislation in this vital Supreme Court case. We remain confident that the justices will affirm the constitutionality of this legislation, and we look forward to celebrating that victory in December.
