Dear friends,

This week, the Supreme Court delivered a decisive landmark victory for medical common sense and constitutional clarity.

In United States v. Skrmetti, the Court upheld Tennessee’s law banning puberty blockers, cross-sex hormone treatments, and “gender affirming” surgeries for minors. Writing for the 6–3 majority, Chief Justice John Roberts made clear this case was not about animus or discrimination, but about the government’s legitimate need to protect public health, and especially protecting children from unproven and irreversible medical harm. The Court also made it abundantly clear that transgender status is not an immutable characteristic, and that invented genders cannot be elevated to a protected class under our Constitution.

A Win for Parents and Children Over Radical Gender Ideology

The Court rejected the Biden administration’s attempt to twist sex discrimination law into a weapon for social engineering. As Chief Justice Roberts wrote, medical treatment must be judged by both the drug used and the reason it is prescribed. A hormone may be appropriate to treat precocious puberty or a congenital defect—but that does not make it appropriate for treating gender dysphoria in a child. The law has a right—and responsibility—to distinguish based on sound medical reasoning and not a radical ideology.

Democracy Is Not a Whim

Justice Sotomayor’s misguided dissent described democratic policymaking as “political whims.” But democracy is not a whim. It is how Americans govern ourselves. As Justice Thomas noted, it is the people—not unelected ideologues— who have the Constitutional authority to reject life-altering treatments on children, especially when true consent by a child is impossible and the science remains unsettled, at best. Justice Thomas also noted the growing number of de-transitioners, whose heart-breaking stories are key reasons states are right to question whether minors can give informed consent for such irreversible “treatments.”

The Court also rightly cited the 2024 Cass Report and the growing international concern about the long-term consequences of medicalizing gender distress in vulnerable youth. While most of Europe is pulling back from these dangerous interventions for minors, radical gender ideologues in the U.S.—who have captured much of our medical establishment—remain intent on experimenting on our children. But thankfully, our Constitution places these decisions where they belong: with the people and their elected representatives.

Mississippi Helped Lead the Way

Mississippi was the third state in the nation to ban puberty blockers and hormone treatments for minors in 2023, thanks to the leadership of our Mississippi lawmakers including then Speaker Philip Gunn, Rep. Gene Newman, Rep. Nick Bain, Sen. Joey Fillingane, Sen Angela Hill, Sen. Josh Harkins, Rep. Jill Ford and so many more.

The Regulate Experimental Adolescent Procedures (REAP) Act prohibits the use of state or local government facilities, Medicaid, and health insurance plans from covering these treatments for minors and healthcare providers who violate the law risk losing their license.

What Must Come Next

This SCOTUS decision is a crucial victory, but it must be just the beginning of a broader effort to protect children and empower parents nationwide. Congress and every state must move swiftly to pass a Parents’ Bill of Rights (PBOR) that guarantees a parent’s right to know what’s happening in their child’s school, doctor’s office, and in their mental health care—and that strongly states that parents alone are responsible for making such decisions on behalf of their children, not the government and bureaucrats captured by the woke mind virus. In Mississippi, several PBOR’s bills were proposed in the past three sessions —and every time, they all were killed. That must change now.

We must also end the dangerous practice of so-called “sanctuary states” like California, which actively undermine parental authority by offering irreversible gender interventions to out-of-state minors— without parental consent, and sometimes in direct defiance of court orders.

In family court, no parent should lose custody or be punished simply for refusing to authorize irreversible medical procedures on their child. And in our foster care and adoption systems, we must stop discriminating against loving families who refuse to go along with the lie that a child can be “born in the wrong body” and can transition to the opposite sex.

This is one of the most important civil rights fights of our time: standing up for biological reality, medical integrity, and the sacred bond between parent and child.

Going forward, this ruling doesn’t answer every cultural or legal question ahead, but it gets the fundamentals right: Children deserve protection, parents deserve a voice, and states have the authority and duty to act on both.

Let’s celebrate this step forward! And Mississippi, let’s continue to stand for truth, parents’ rights, and the dignity of every child.

Are you with us?

Please check out previous stories here.