The Tenth Circuit handed down a notable opinion this week in Poe v. Drummond, upholding Oklahoma’s law prohibiting gender transition procedures for anyone under eighteen. The opinion by Judge Joel Carson (joined by Judges Harris Hartz and Gregory Phillips) concluded that parental rights do not trump a state’s determination of what are safe treatments for minor patients.
Opinion polls show that most citizens favor a ban on such transitioning for minors. Other polling shows that the majority also views the transitioning of minors as “morally wrong.”
Various states have passed laws to ban the practice, and various foreign nations have imposed similar bans.
In response, advocacy groups have sought to use parental rights challenges to strike down the law. It is an ironic effort since some of these groups oppose parental rights in areas like abortions for minors without parental notice.
I have been a strong advocate for parental rights for decades. However, such rights are not absolute. The government has a core responsibility in barring practices that may be harmful for minors when based on objective, scientific evidence.
The Court ruled:
Parents have the right “to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children,” which includes “to some extent, a more specific right to make decisions about the child’s medical care,” But we and the Supreme Court have held that parents do not have an absolute “right to direct a child’s medical care.” …
We … have consistently held that individuals do not have an affirmative right to specific medical treatments the government reasonably prohibits. We have held that although patients have a fundamental right to refuse treatment, the “selection of a particular treatment … is within the area of governmental interest in protecting public health.” Thus, the government has the “authority to limit the patient’s choice of medication,” whether the patient is an adult or a child.
The panel found that to rule otherwise would allow parents to “veto legislative and regulatory polices about drugs and surgeries permitted for children.”
The Supreme Court has previously upheld, in Washington v. Glucksberg (1997), a Washington state law banning assisted suicide and found that such a right was not a fundamental liberty interest protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
In United States v. Skrmetti (2025), the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors after a challenge under the Equal Protection Clause. Chief Justice John Roberts found that the law did not discriminate based on sex or transgender status, but instead on age and medical need.
The Tenth Circuit is also at the center of a pending case to be heard in the October Term with potentially sweeping implications. In Chiles v. Salazar, the Tenth Circuit upheld a Colorado law banning conversion therapy for minors, finding that it did not violate free speech protections.
I believe that the Tenth Circuit is correct in rejecting the parental rights claim in Poe. However, I disagree with the ruling in Chiles. Colorado’s ban on counseling, in my view, is excessive and violates the First Amendment. These Tenth Circuit cases could prove critical in bringing greater clarity to this area in the coming year.
Notably, yesterday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reaffirmed her commitment to mandate gender transitioning procedures on the federal level if the Democrats retake power in Congress.
Nancy Pelosi and democrats do not care about children or to be more specific, human beings, in their lust for POWER. That is all their platform’s say, … I.e., “everyone should be allowed to do anything/everthing except have free speech”. AND, violence against you is warranted and excused – which is Britain’s big mistake. During the last 16 years conservatives have not spoken except behind closed doors because left wing universities (my case) would make up a reason to have grievances brought, have you fired, bring lawsuits, etc. because you stated an opinion contrary to their group think.
There is a ban on children purchasing alcohol, drugs, and tobacco products. There is also a child endangerment law that if a parent gives those articles to their child CPS will step in etc. etc. etc. How is transgendering a minor any different other than it is now the pet darling of the woke bunch?
Sure we don’t want a nanny state telling us what color or style of clothing we put on our little darlings and that is a reasonable decision of a parent, but this entire discussion is caused by a lack of an agreed upon common moral core and a unified culture. This is only the beginning of the problems that will lead to either anarchy or a totalitarian state because we forgot the caution of our founding fathers when they said this government/society will only last as long as we were a united culture with commonly held core beliefs.
We allowed the progressives and nihilists to infiltrate our culture to the point, now, where there is very little, if any, common ground of agreed upon culture and now we have chaos. We already see a push to normalize pedophilia and suicide, for example, and we have not even begun to attempt to integrate other fringe elements. Once you abandon a cultural core it is almost impossible to get it back. Our melting pot worked because people were assimilated in order to participate in our society. Now we need a hundred languages on government forms and we are to be forced to call a male a female on a whim.
This is a path to societal suicide.
“There is a ban on children purchasing alcohol, drugs, and tobacco products. There is also a child endangerment law that if a parent gives those articles to their child CPS will step in etc. etc. etc. How is transgendering a minor any different other than it is now the pet darling of the woke bunch?”
Whitest Kids U’ Know – Kid Beer
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2x897x
I would had used the YouTube version of the video, but YouTube shamefully took it down. 😤
“After Judge John Coughenour ruled against the Trump administration, local authorities received a false report that he’d killed his wife.”
Thank you JT, Your support of the violent thug, the orange god, the disgusting serial sexual abuser is the same person who has thugs going around doing this. Disgusting.
“Thank you JT, Your support of the violent thug, the orange god, the disgusting serial sexual abuser is the same person who has thugs going around doing this. Disgusting.”
I bet you loved Bill Clinton though. Cry harder.
ANON – 9:43A Public display of your mental-disorders may be popular with your brethren, but most people just want you to seek psychological intervention. https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/521362094364475147/
Between Pelosi’s statement and Carville openly saying the dems will attempt to pack the courts and add states – I do not want our power structure to have modern dems anywhere near it ever again. I really hope as a country we are not this stupid when the tide is turning again. And Hochul saying ‘dems follow the rules’ – good grief. There is nothing redeemable about the modern left.
I agree, I want our country to be run by a serial sexual abuser. I want women just like trump does. MAGA, where when women say no, who gives a rats A$$.
“I agree, I want our country to be run by a serial sexual abuser. I want women just like trump does. MAGA, where when women say no, who gives a rats A$$.”
This rhetoric worked so well in last year’s election, keep it up!
Biden and Bill Clinton.
Munchausen by leftism is the real pandemic.
Or maybe Munchausen by virtue signaling. That’s it. That’s the ticket!
Pelosi must have stock in that transitioning company
I’d pay to transition her back to the human race.
Pelosi stands up for indidual rights. Turley stands up for religion’s ability to curtail individual rights. Business as usual.
“Pelosi stands up for indidual [sic] rights. Turley stands up for religion’s ability to curtail individual rights. Business as usual.”
We don’t let children get tattoos, or drink, or smoke, or drive a car, even if their parents consent. I didn’t realize that was all because of “religion”. You’re really bad at this.
Pelosi stands for making millions on insider trading with her husband. Pelosi is all about Pelosi and the rest is all a ruse to deflect attention from her ill gotten gains.
I’m on board with transitioning procedures being limited to 18 (or even 21) regardless of parental wishes. But it is interesting how parents can decide on circumcision of male infants, ear piercing of infants and even tattooing a minor with parental consent. Many states allow an emancipated minor to get a tattoo. We don’t appear to be as consistent as we should be.
All those procedures you list do not ruin you for life like removing whole body parts or taking irreversible hormones. Do you really not see the difference between an ear piercing and a forearm skin graft?
We don’t appear to be as consistent as we should be.
As we should be? The states are “laboratories of democracy,” as Justice Louis Brandeis famously observed. Anything that isn’t preempted by federal law they decide for themselves. They’re not intended to be consistent.
You truly don’t see the difference between ear piercing/circumcisions/ tattoos (millennia old procedures) vs experimenting to create a vagina after cutting of a child’s penis or trying to create a penis from arm and stomach skin of a child? And no difference between administering sterilizing drugs to a child and a tattoo? Consistency relies on degree of intrusion and possible harm. That’s why we have multiple charges for the death of someone at someone else’s hand – everything from self-defense to 1st degree murder. Your misunderstanding of consistency is what’s leading America into chaos.
As I mentioned above, we can no longer be consistent because we are no longer one culture. Either we become one culture again (I have my doubts whether the genie can be put back into the bottle) or we fragment into small cells of vast individual values that will lead to violent interactions when one cell of cultural values crosses over the perceived rights of another group.
You can see how this is not going to work no matter, we either have chaos from here on out or we create a totalitarian state that tells us how to behave since we are no longer a pot of melded together, agreed upon values, but have become a bazaar of conflicting ideologies that will never coalesce into a functioning society.
We are toast because we allowed progressive/nihilistic ideology to find root here.
The hypocrisy of woke leftists is almost amazing to behold. But then we look at what they fight for and realize how dumb they really are. If you are 18 years old and want to “trans,” have at it. Don’t expect anyone to pay for it but you. “Transing” a child be it the parent or a teacher or some other groomer is child abuse. Plain and simple.
I think an important point in the column is that the left argues that a parent has no right to even know if their child is getting an abortion but they should have a right to cut off their child’s reproductive organs if that is what THEY, THE PARENTS, want.
Hey leftists, do radical Muslims have the right to perform circumcisions on THEIR DAUGHTERS?
Once they’d have said, “no, of course not!” But since the early years of this century, Muslim culture is sacred, and must not be criticized.
“Queers for Palestine” where they’d be formally executed, if not thrown off rooves of burned alive. “Feminists in Solidarity with Muslims” despite the debasement and mutilation of women, denial to them of education, driving rights, etc. etc. etc.
This isn’t liberalism, it’s a strangely self-immolating insanity which is part and parcel of the leftist death wish for humanity.
Go a few steps farther , Ellen, and you’ll realize “they” want to throw you off the rooftop and for reason. It’ll look like you willingly jumped. They’ll claim you had a choice.
Verbal Kint
and I can assure you that most of those students being assisted by school personnel, with abortion planning behind parents’ backs, -are white. The Black kids want the babies, and their mamas want the added government assistance.
“Trans” is a fake word. There are no “trans” human beings.
It isn’t a word at all. But it is a perfectly useful prefix. One can only be trans-something.
Trans is short for transitioning and there is no such thing as a transitioning human being.
Oh, I don’t think that’s true. Aren’t we in perpetual transition? Hopefully toward greater wisdom, greater kindness, greater knowledge and self-knowledge?
Please provide an example of a male transitioning into a female or female into a male. there is no such thing and you know this.
A state or process of divergence. The “trans” in question is limited to simulants. Gender refers to sex-correlated attributes (e.g. sexual orientation).
The 10th court of Appeals has made a decision for sanity. I am pleased to see this insanity starting be corralled and its acolytes scattered into disorder. Never one to give a great deal of praise to the Europeans but they literally got the ball rolling here and began to stop this transitioning. The UK seems to have an ever deeper seated problem than we have here and it will be interesting to see what happens there even as we hopefully make more progress here.
Healthcare is not what you make it. It is state constrained and regulated as professor Turley mentions in his column. As you can be charged with assault for treating without consent and civilly sued. I realize some medical personnel think they are god, they are not.
As Anonymous the Stupid has failed to remember we have quality assessments and judgements in medical staffs and Boards of Health that will yank your license if you practice outside the parameters of accepted medical care. Also suspend your hospital privileges and sue you for hefty sums of money (along with the injured patients).
ATS should practice without constraints. Likely to produce some not so pretty headlines and jail time. Might even lose access to a keyboard.
“. . . use parental rights challenges to strike down the law.”
Suppose a child says: “Mommy, I’m uncomfortable in my skin.”
Does the parent have a “right” to seek “epidermis transitioning surgery” — aka flaying?
There is no such thing as the “right” to child abuse — whether done by a savage with a shard of glass, or by a Western “doctor” in a white coat. If anything, the latter is more barbaric.
“Notably, yesterday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reaffirmed her commitment to mandate gender transitioning procedures on the federal level if the Democrats retake power in Congress.” – the political ads write themselves.
Parents have an obligation to nurture and protect their children until adulthood. But what happens when they fall short? Society steps in—think child welfare laws or mandatory education. Parental rights aren’t absolute. Legal precedents, like banning tattoos for minors or defining underage sex as rape, show society’s role in setting boundaries. Yet circumcision, unlike female genital mutilation, blurs the line on “body modification.”
When it comes to minors transitioning, where should the line be drawn? Consultation and education aren’t absolute, and balancing parental rights with societal responsibility is tricky.
“Parental rights aren’t absolute.”
That is correct, a balance must be struck between the rights of parents, who are held to be responsible for how their children develop, and the interests of “society”, which for us are represented by the State. However, in such a balance, the parents’ rights are primary, and we would do well to keep that firmly in mind.
What kind of parent would want to mutilate an underage child’s genitals? Sick parents that hate their kids and never want grandchildren. I hope the penalty for violating the law is life in prison.
I am not against trans people. If you are of age and wish to do that to yourself, go ahead, just don’t ask me to pay for it for you.
The penalty? There is none.
Me, I’m against “trans people”, they need mental help not coddling.
That’s not being against them, that is caring about their future. Democrats don’t care about trans futures, just how they can use them for political purposes right now.
As much as I hate government involvement in our private lives, children must be protected from “fads.” Parents don’t have the right to decide that drinking laws or driving age laws don’t apply to their kid. I am glad the courts ruled the same on harming children beyond repair.
“Parents don’t have the right to decide that drinking laws or driving age laws don’t apply to their kid”
Meh. Not too long ago, the nearly universal minimum age for consumption of alcohol was 21 (afaik the only exceptions at that time were 2 or 3 states that allowed serving low-alcohol “near beer” to 18 year olds). In spite of that, drinking outside the home commonly began as soon as a teen earned a driver’s license – typically at 17. Is it your considered opinion that, under those circumstances, attempts by a parent to introduce an older teen to (for example) a glass of wine at a family holiday dinner constitutes abuse, which should be subject to remedy by the authorities? Same question in regard to, again for example, a parent allowing a 16 year old teen to drive the family car for a short distance on a mostly deserted back road to being familiarization with the required skills?
“begin” not “being” familiarization – lysdexia for cure have found I 🙂
Dyssexltics od the world, untie!
No answer, J G Gordon?
At age 60, Horne Therapy was part or my cancer treatment. Hindsight, I would NOT do it again, rolling the dice on my cancer. It was wicked what it did to my body, still living with the side effects 13 years later. I can’t image a pre teen going thru the process nor would subscribe to such treatment.
This is not health-care.
NUTS!
Health care is whatever YOU want it to be.
So Dr. Josef Mengele was providing ‘healthcare’ to Jewish people according to your definition?
Get a dictionary.
health care
noun
variants or healthcare
ˈhelth-ˌker
also ˈheltth-
1: efforts made to maintain, restore, or promote someone’s physical, mental, or emotional well-being especially when performed by trained and licensed professionals
As the comment stated: its what you want it to be. You, not Mengele.
Too much coffee this morning or did the wife ….
An adult may determine what health care is for them and there are plenty of avaricious physicians and hospitals waiting to take their money.
Don’t know anything about Horne Therapy, but you deserve my sympathy. I hope you find comfort in the years to come.
It has become a problem of TRUST and lack thereof.
People have never really trusted politicians, especially now.
People don’t trust teachers and school counselors as competent to recommend transitioning.
People, since COVID, don’t trust scientists to make unbiased evaluations of evidence.
People don’t trust hospitals, thinking they do transitioning simply as a lifetime source of money.
The last bastion of trust had been parents, who have now been declared as irrelevant.
Many no longer trust the courts to have wisdom, though anointed with final power.
“We got trouble, my friend.” — Music Man.
““We got trouble, my friend.””
In my opinion the source of the “trouble” was misplaced, unearned, and excessive trust in “authority” in the first place. Self-reliance is not only a virtue, it is the most basic survival trait.
Reinstate conversion therapy if only for the sake of watching the left go nuts
A quite good enough reason! I will bring the popcorn.