New York Times columnist Masha Gessen joined NPR host Michel Martin on Wednesday’s edition of Amanpour and Company on PBS, where he attacked the Supreme Court for not listening to the left’s preferred “experts” on the case involving Tennessee’s ban on so-called “gender-affirming care” for minors.

Martin declared, “You have some interesting things to say in a number of the columns that you've written about how this is also about a kind of loathing or resistance to expertise,” before inviting Gessen to “Say more about that, why you say that.”

 

 

Gessen lamented, “I think that's what we really saw in the Supreme Court hearing, right? It was supposed to be an Equal Protection Clause hearing. So, it was all supposed to be about whether it constitutes sex discrimination. But in fact, the justices kept going back, and this is true for both conservative and liberal justices, they kept going back to the merits of the care itself.”

The first half of Amanpour and Company refers to host Christiane Amanpour, who tapes her portion of the show from London. On the day this episode aired, the left-wing Labour government in Britain announced a ban on puberty blockers for minors as a way to treat gender dysphoria. The Tennessee law before the U.S. Supreme Court also does that, as well as hormone treatment, but Gessen wanted to pretend that Tennessee’s position was the radical one:

And if you think about it, that's quite extraordinary, because the justices, I mean, they kept, both sides, kept completely getting lost in the weeds. They can't tell the difference between puberty blockers and hormone treatment, nor should they, they're justices. They're not doctors. But, doctors, every single professional medical association, including every single pediatrics association in this country, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, arguing that this ban is harmful, that children should -- some children should have access to gender-affirming care, that it is correct, it is needed, it is in some cases lifesaving.

With the news out of Britain, maybe that says more about “every single pediatrics association in this country” than it does Tennessee or the Supreme Court.

Gessen further lamented, “Instead of saying, ‘Okay, well, the doctors say that this is necessary, what is the state's compelling interest in going against medical expertise?’ Instead of posing the question like that, they started debating the merits of the actual care. And, you know, Justice Kavanaugh said, ‘Oh, there are harms on both sides. What if people regret it, or what if they commit suicide? Both things are dangerous.’ We have actual experts for that.”

The state's compelling interest is to know whether this "care" is necessary or effective because experts who have been captured by politics are just activists with fancier titles.

Here is a transcript for the December 11 show:

PBS Amanpour and Company

12/11/2024

MICHEL MARTIN: You have some interesting things to say in a number of the columns that you've written about how this is also about a kind of loathing or resistance to expertise. Say more about that, why you say that.

MASHA GESSEN: I think that's what we really saw in the Supreme Court hearing, right? It was supposed to be an Equal Protection Clause hearing. So, it was all supposed to be about whether it constitutes sex discrimination. But in fact, the justices kept going back, and this is true for both conservative and liberal justices, they kept going back to the merits of the care itself.

And if you think about it, that's quite extraordinary, because the justices, I mean, they kept, both sides, kept completely getting lost in the weeds. They can't tell the difference between puberty blockers and hormone treatment, nor should they, they're justices. They're not doctors. But, doctors, every single professional medical association, including every single pediatrics association in this country, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court, arguing that this ban is harmful, that children should -- some children should have access to gender-affirming care, that it is correct, it is needed, it is in some cases lifesaving.

And so, the fact that justices on both sides think nothing of sort of -- instead of saying, “Okay, well, the doctors say that this is necessary, what is the state's compelling interest in going against medical expertise?” Instead of posing the question like that, they started debating the merits of the actual care. And, you know, Justice Kavanaugh said, “oh, there are harms on both sides. What if people regret it or what if they commit suicide? Both things are dangerous.” We have actual experts for that?