Matt Sharp, attorney for Alliance Defending Freedom, joins Ryan to discuss last week's oral arguments in United States v. Skrmetti, a pending United States Supreme Court case on whether bans on gender affirming care (including puberty blockers and hormone therapy) for transgender minors under the age of 18 violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Matt Sharp (@MattSharpADF) / X
Matt Sharp (@MattSharpADF) / X
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is about the ability of Tennessee and dozens of
other states to protect kid from the kids from these
dangerous gender transition drugs and surgeries. States like Tennessee, they're
following the science, They're following the data coming out of
Europe other places that are showing that these drugs and
surgeries are harmful to kids, and instead they're looking at
ways to better prioritize mental health services for kids. That's
(00:21):
what Tennessee is following, and that's why they passed this law.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
That voice you hear Matt Sharp. He is Alliance Defending
Freedom senior counsel, and he was talking about, of course,
the case of United States versus Scurmetti before the United
States Supreme Court last week. There were oral arguments, and
it's a case on whether bans on gender affirming care
so called including puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender
(00:45):
identifying minors under the age of eighteen, whether that type
of treatment and the ban on that type of treatment,
whether it violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
He joins US now.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
He is the director of the ADF Center for Public
Policy Here on Ryan Schuling Live. Matt, thank you so
much for your time today.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
If you could summarize the case from your standpoint for
our listeners out there that might only have a cursory
knowledge of it, how would you bull appoint it.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Tennessee is one of twenty six states. It was looking
at the growing practice of giving kids that experienced confusion
about their sex pbree blockers, fasted twomos, and even surgery.
Tnnessey was looking at that, looking at science coming out
of Europe and other places showing that these drugs and
surgeries are harmful to kids, and decided there's a better
(01:39):
pass forward, so they prohibited those things for being given
to kids and instead wanted to focus on mental health
services counseling to ultimately help kids find comfort with their
biological kids.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Very nicely done. Now we go to one of your
colleagues at Alliance Defending Freedom and you guys do such
great work over so many different causes and cases. Kristin
Wagoner appeared on CNN with Brianna Keeler and this one
was truly jaw dropping.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
I think a lot of people are confused about this issue.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
They don't know where they stand on it.
Speaker 6 (02:11):
But where is the room for a conversation about this?
Speaker 7 (02:15):
I love that we're having one right now in terms
of a conversation. And that's what was an issue today.
What kid, what girl knows whether she's going to want
to have a baby long term, or what testosterone will
do to her uterus, or that she will increase her
risk of heart attack?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So take so stretch.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Some of them do no, No, none of them, No,
I don't know. None of them do eighty five percent
what we know from the science. And again, it's about
not putting ideology over evidence. And that's what's happening here.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
First of all, God love Kristin for putting up with
that absolutely insane assertion by Brianna Keeler that a youngster,
a toddler, or even an adolescent knows exactly what they
want to do with the rest of theirs. So go
ahead and mutilate my body irreparably and irreversibly. I can
make that decision at age ten. Matt, how do you
even put that into words? What you just witnessed and
(03:10):
listening to.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
That, Yeah, well, it's shocking to hear the CNN host
push back on this. Think of our laws kids. We
don't allow them to buy tobacco or alcohol, we don't
let them get tattoos, we don't let them get a
driver's license before the age of fifteen votes. There's so
many things that we recognize kids can't understand. They don't
have the capacity to grapple with the consequence of this,
(03:34):
and so we say you've got to wait until you
reach a search and age. That's what Kennethy was doing
with something that in these cases, these drugs and surgeries
that impair brain development can call permanent sterility, can call
the other heart risk and things get Christen mentioned there
Tennosey stepping in and saying kids shouldn't be making decisions
about those things either, they don't have the capacity to
(03:55):
understand them, and so let's just put a pause on
that and say, while you're a child's going to let
you have a natural childhood. Once you reach adulthood you
can make your own decisions. But as a kid, let's
just let you go through puberty, because we know from
the science get upwards of eighty five even ninety percent
of kids will naturally resolve and grow out of this.
And just left lowe Innessy just wants to let kids
(04:16):
work this out with good counseling rather than putting them
on this dangerous medical life path.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Follow him on exit. Matt sharp Ada from Alliance Defending Freedom.
He is front and center on this case United States
versus Scurmetti and whether or not Tennessee is within its
rights to have a state law prohibiting transgender surgeries and
hormone blockers for adolescents who are not capable of making
adult decisions on many other fronts, like whether or not
(04:41):
they can get married, whether or not they can consult
consent rather to sexual activity, whether or not they can
get a tattoo, whether or not they can buy and
drink alcohol.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
But for some reason you can chop off their parts.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
They have the full agency and awareness to make that
decision for themselves.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
It's it's sheer madness in Matt.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
A lot of this was exposed in the phenomenal film
What Is a Woman by Matt Walsh of Daily Wire.
I thought it was brilliantly done and it showed true
empathy for those dealing with gender dysphoria, including a transgender
male who was born biological female and was sold a
bill of goods like we can make you a man,
We'll give you a testosterone, We'll create a prosthetic penis
(05:23):
in a different part of your body and surgically attached that.
And they buy into what they think is going to
be a dream and a panacea and some kind of
paradise where they can really change their gender. But fundamentally,
you can alter it, you can present as something different,
but you can never fully become the opposite gender. I
don't know why this is a discussion in twenty twenty four,
(05:43):
but Matt, how did.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
We get to this point?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Well, unfortunately, it's because you've got profit motivated gender clinics
that are putting ideology over evidence. That Christy said, and
part of what motivated Penisy to past this law was
admission from Vanderbilt Universe the Medical Center that these surgeries
and drugs are quote huge money makers for them. They
weren't prioritizing these kids the best interests. They weren't prioritizing
(06:08):
their mental health or actually helping them. They were putting
profits over Tennessee's kids. And that's why Tennessee intervened in this,
and that's why we're seeing the European countries for Verse
in course saying these drugs and surgeries aren't helping kids.
In one Swedish study, they actually had nineteen times higher
rates of suicide when they went into adulthood for kids
and adolescents that had been given these drugs and paties,
(06:31):
nineteen times higher rates of suicide. That's a tragedy that
Europe's correcting, and that's what Tennessee and these other states
are trying to stop some happening here in the US.
In the first place, you don't want kids to end
up irreversibly damaged by this. They want them protected. They
want them to grow up healthy and strong. And that's
what these laws are trying to do. It's protect kids health.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Matt Sharp Alliance Defending Freedom joining us here on Ryan
Schuling Live and Matt, I've interviewed a transgender friend of mine,
Sarah Higden. I've interviewed a Gaze against Groomers member.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
They are all.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Looking out for the welfare of children, and they're pushing
back against the argument that is used to justify these surgeries, procedures.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Hormone blockers, etc.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Including from one of the attorneys presenting their side of
the case at the Supreme Court of the United States
last week and that is, you can have a dead
son or a healthy daughter, or vice versa, depending on
whether or not you affirm this young person's gender identity.
Justice Samuel Alito really took that to task, and he
(07:31):
dismantled it in breathtaking fashion.
Speaker 8 (07:34):
After the filing for your petition, of course, we saw
the release of the Cast Report in the United Kingdom
which found a complete lack of high quality evidence showing
that the benefits of the treatments in question here outweigh
(07:55):
the risks. And so I wonder if you would like
to stand by the statement that you made in your petition,
or if you think it would now be appropriate to
modify that and withdraw the statement that there is overwhelming
evidence establishing that these treatments have benefits that greatly outweigh
(08:17):
the risks from the dangers.
Speaker 9 (08:19):
I of course acknowledged Justice Alito that there is a
lot of debate happening here and abroad about the proper
model of delivery of this care and exactly when adolescents
should receive it, and how to identify the adolescence for
whom it would be helpful.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
That was Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar counterbalancing against Justice Alito there,
But it's funny once these attorneys get before the Supreme
Court and those nine justices staring you in the face,
how quickly and dramatically they change their tunb This also
happened with Chase Strangio on that side of the presentation
when Justice Alito made the same comparison.
Speaker 8 (08:54):
But on page one ninety five for the cast report,
it says there is no evidence that gender affirmative treatments
reduce suicide.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
What I think that is referring to is there is
no evidence in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide.
And the reason for that is completed suicide. Thankfully, and
admittedly it is rare, and we're talking about a very
small population of individuals with studies that don't necessarily have
completed suicides within them. However, there are multiple studies, long term,
(09:30):
longitudinal studies that do show that there is a reduction
in suicidality, which I think is a positive outcome to
this treatment.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I do not, and I don't think that is a
worthy delineation.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Matt.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
When Chase Stranger tries to buifur kate and make this point, oh, well,
you're right.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
In completed suicides. Yeah, not a big change, but.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
In the suicidal ideation there is a dramatic decrease, so
that makes it all worth it.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
What are your.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Thoughts, Well, again, I think let's follow the science. When
you've got Sweden, when you've got Finland, when he's got
the UK that are doing these years long studies following
these kids, when they're looking at all of the best
evidence out there and they're coming to that conclusion.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
It's justice.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
The leader said, there is no evidence that this produced
the suicide and youth and in fact causes all of
these terrible arms, causes the potential for the ability to
have a child, causes the mental lack of development when
you deprive someone of going through puberty. It's perfectly appropriate
and in fact, I think necessary for lawmakers like they
(10:32):
did in Tennessee, to say, based on this evidence that
this is not helping kids, and in fact it's doing
a lot of harm. Let's protect kids from this. So
I really appreciated the court calling that out because at
the end of the day, it is our lawmakers, the
elected representatives charge was laying the evidence, was looking at
the science and passing the laws that support SIDS in
(10:52):
their states. And that's what Tennessee did, and I appreciated
Aldo and even the Chief Justice saying, in these areas
of public debate like this, it's the role of the
court to fix the court into that debate and stop it.
Whether it's the appropriate place for the Court to step back,
lets the debate happen at the legislature and let the
legislative body beside what's best of the city.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
We'll keep an eye on where this goes.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It's looking to be shaping up like a six '
to three decision, but we'll see once the Supreme Court
comes out with its ruling. Matt Sharp will be following
each step of the way for Alliance Defending Freedom Again
they do great work. Be sure to follow him on
X at Matt Sharp EIGHTF Matt. We'll keep in touch.
We'll see where this goes, and we'll have you back
on to discuss it.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Okay, sounds great, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Matt Sharp joining us here on Ryan Schuling Live and
wrapping up our number one.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
We have some Trump hot takes. We come back after
this
This is about the ability of Tennessee and dozens of
other states to protect kid from the kids from these
dangerous gender transition drugs and surgeries. States like Tennessee, they're
following the science, They're following the data coming out of
Europe other places that are showing that these drugs and
surgeries are harmful to kids, and instead they're looking at
ways to better prioritize mental health services for kids. That's
(00:21):
what Tennessee is following, and that's why they passed this law.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
That voice you hear Matt Sharp. He is Alliance Defending
Freedom senior counsel, and he was talking about, of course,
the case of United States versus Scurmetti before the United
States Supreme Court last week. There were oral arguments, and
it's a case on whether bans on gender affirming care
so called including puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender
(00:45):
identifying minors under the age of eighteen, whether that type
of treatment and the ban on that type of treatment,
whether it violates the equal protection clause of the fourteenth
Amendment to the United States Constitution.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
He joins US now.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
He is the director of the ADF Center for Public
Policy Here on Ryan Schuling Live. Matt, thank you so
much for your time today.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
If you could summarize the case from your standpoint for
our listeners out there that might only have a cursory
knowledge of it, how would you bull appoint it.
Speaker 4 (01:18):
Tennessee is one of twenty six states. It was looking
at the growing practice of giving kids that experienced confusion
about their sex pbree blockers, fasted twomos, and even surgery.
Tnnessey was looking at that, looking at science coming out
of Europe and other places showing that these drugs and
surgeries are harmful to kids, and decided there's a better
(01:39):
pass forward, so they prohibited those things for being given
to kids and instead wanted to focus on mental health
services counseling to ultimately help kids find comfort with their
biological kids.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
Very nicely done. Now we go to one of your
colleagues at Alliance Defending Freedom and you guys do such
great work over so many different causes and cases. Kristin
Wagoner appeared on CNN with Brianna Keeler and this one
was truly jaw dropping.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
I think a lot of people are confused about this issue.
Speaker 4 (02:09):
They don't know where they stand on it.
Speaker 6 (02:11):
But where is the room for a conversation about this?
Speaker 7 (02:15):
I love that we're having one right now in terms
of a conversation. And that's what was an issue today.
What kid, what girl knows whether she's going to want
to have a baby long term, or what testosterone will
do to her uterus, or that she will increase her
risk of heart attack?
Speaker 3 (02:32):
So take so stretch.
Speaker 6 (02:33):
Some of them do no, No, none of them, No,
I don't know. None of them do eighty five percent
what we know from the science. And again, it's about
not putting ideology over evidence. And that's what's happening here.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
First of all, God love Kristin for putting up with
that absolutely insane assertion by Brianna Keeler that a youngster,
a toddler, or even an adolescent knows exactly what they
want to do with the rest of theirs. So go
ahead and mutilate my body irreparably and irreversibly. I can
make that decision at age ten. Matt, how do you
even put that into words? What you just witnessed and
(03:10):
listening to.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
That, Yeah, well, it's shocking to hear the CNN host
push back on this. Think of our laws kids. We
don't allow them to buy tobacco or alcohol, we don't
let them get tattoos, we don't let them get a
driver's license before the age of fifteen votes. There's so
many things that we recognize kids can't understand. They don't
have the capacity to grapple with the consequence of this,
(03:34):
and so we say you've got to wait until you
reach a search and age. That's what Kennethy was doing
with something that in these cases, these drugs and surgeries
that impair brain development can call permanent sterility, can call
the other heart risk and things get Christen mentioned there
Tennosey stepping in and saying kids shouldn't be making decisions
about those things either, they don't have the capacity to
(03:55):
understand them, and so let's just put a pause on
that and say, while you're a child's going to let
you have a natural childhood. Once you reach adulthood you
can make your own decisions. But as a kid, let's
just let you go through puberty, because we know from
the science get upwards of eighty five even ninety percent
of kids will naturally resolve and grow out of this.
And just left lowe Innessy just wants to let kids
(04:16):
work this out with good counseling rather than putting them
on this dangerous medical life path.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Follow him on exit. Matt sharp Ada from Alliance Defending Freedom.
He is front and center on this case United States
versus Scurmetti and whether or not Tennessee is within its
rights to have a state law prohibiting transgender surgeries and
hormone blockers for adolescents who are not capable of making
adult decisions on many other fronts, like whether or not
(04:41):
they can get married, whether or not they can consult
consent rather to sexual activity, whether or not they can
get a tattoo, whether or not they can buy and
drink alcohol.
Speaker 3 (04:50):
But for some reason you can chop off their parts.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
They have the full agency and awareness to make that
decision for themselves.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
It's it's sheer madness in Matt.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
A lot of this was exposed in the phenomenal film
What Is a Woman by Matt Walsh of Daily Wire.
I thought it was brilliantly done and it showed true
empathy for those dealing with gender dysphoria, including a transgender
male who was born biological female and was sold a
bill of goods like we can make you a man,
We'll give you a testosterone, We'll create a prosthetic penis
(05:23):
in a different part of your body and surgically attached that.
And they buy into what they think is going to
be a dream and a panacea and some kind of
paradise where they can really change their gender. But fundamentally,
you can alter it, you can present as something different,
but you can never fully become the opposite gender. I
don't know why this is a discussion in twenty twenty four,
(05:43):
but Matt, how did.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
We get to this point?
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Well, unfortunately, it's because you've got profit motivated gender clinics
that are putting ideology over evidence. That Christy said, and
part of what motivated Penisy to past this law was
admission from Vanderbilt Universe the Medical Center that these surgeries
and drugs are quote huge money makers for them. They
weren't prioritizing these kids the best interests. They weren't prioritizing
(06:08):
their mental health or actually helping them. They were putting
profits over Tennessee's kids. And that's why Tennessee intervened in this,
and that's why we're seeing the European countries for Verse
in course saying these drugs and surgeries aren't helping kids.
In one Swedish study, they actually had nineteen times higher
rates of suicide when they went into adulthood for kids
and adolescents that had been given these drugs and paties,
(06:31):
nineteen times higher rates of suicide. That's a tragedy that
Europe's correcting, and that's what Tennessee and these other states
are trying to stop some happening here in the US.
In the first place, you don't want kids to end
up irreversibly damaged by this. They want them protected. They
want them to grow up healthy and strong. And that's
what these laws are trying to do. It's protect kids health.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Matt Sharp Alliance Defending Freedom joining us here on Ryan
Schuling Live and Matt, I've interviewed a transgender friend of mine,
Sarah Higden. I've interviewed a Gaze against Groomers member.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
They are all.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Looking out for the welfare of children, and they're pushing
back against the argument that is used to justify these surgeries, procedures.
Speaker 3 (07:10):
Hormone blockers, etc.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
Including from one of the attorneys presenting their side of
the case at the Supreme Court of the United States
last week and that is, you can have a dead
son or a healthy daughter, or vice versa, depending on
whether or not you affirm this young person's gender identity.
Justice Samuel Alito really took that to task, and he
(07:31):
dismantled it in breathtaking fashion.
Speaker 8 (07:34):
After the filing for your petition, of course, we saw
the release of the Cast Report in the United Kingdom
which found a complete lack of high quality evidence showing
that the benefits of the treatments in question here outweigh
(07:55):
the risks. And so I wonder if you would like
to stand by the statement that you made in your petition,
or if you think it would now be appropriate to
modify that and withdraw the statement that there is overwhelming
evidence establishing that these treatments have benefits that greatly outweigh
(08:17):
the risks from the dangers.
Speaker 9 (08:19):
I of course acknowledged Justice Alito that there is a
lot of debate happening here and abroad about the proper
model of delivery of this care and exactly when adolescents
should receive it, and how to identify the adolescence for
whom it would be helpful.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
That was Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar counterbalancing against Justice Alito there,
But it's funny once these attorneys get before the Supreme
Court and those nine justices staring you in the face,
how quickly and dramatically they change their tunb This also
happened with Chase Strangio on that side of the presentation
when Justice Alito made the same comparison.
Speaker 8 (08:54):
But on page one ninety five for the cast report,
it says there is no evidence that gender affirmative treatments
reduce suicide.
Speaker 5 (09:06):
What I think that is referring to is there is
no evidence in the studies that this treatment reduces completed suicide.
And the reason for that is completed suicide. Thankfully, and
admittedly it is rare, and we're talking about a very
small population of individuals with studies that don't necessarily have
completed suicides within them. However, there are multiple studies, long term,
(09:30):
longitudinal studies that do show that there is a reduction
in suicidality, which I think is a positive outcome to
this treatment.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I do not, and I don't think that is a
worthy delineation.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Matt.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
When Chase Stranger tries to buifur kate and make this point, oh, well,
you're right.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
In completed suicides. Yeah, not a big change, but.
Speaker 2 (09:49):
In the suicidal ideation there is a dramatic decrease, so
that makes it all worth it.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
What are your.
Speaker 4 (09:54):
Thoughts, Well, again, I think let's follow the science. When
you've got Sweden, when you've got Finland, when he's got
the UK that are doing these years long studies following
these kids, when they're looking at all of the best
evidence out there and they're coming to that conclusion.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
It's justice.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
The leader said, there is no evidence that this produced
the suicide and youth and in fact causes all of
these terrible arms, causes the potential for the ability to
have a child, causes the mental lack of development when
you deprive someone of going through puberty. It's perfectly appropriate
and in fact, I think necessary for lawmakers like they
(10:32):
did in Tennessee, to say, based on this evidence that
this is not helping kids, and in fact it's doing
a lot of harm. Let's protect kids from this. So
I really appreciated the court calling that out because at
the end of the day, it is our lawmakers, the
elected representatives charge was laying the evidence, was looking at
the science and passing the laws that support SIDS in
(10:52):
their states. And that's what Tennessee did, and I appreciated
Aldo and even the Chief Justice saying, in these areas
of public debate like this, it's the role of the
court to fix the court into that debate and stop it.
Whether it's the appropriate place for the Court to step back,
lets the debate happen at the legislature and let the
legislative body beside what's best of the city.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
We'll keep an eye on where this goes.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
It's looking to be shaping up like a six '
to three decision, but we'll see once the Supreme Court
comes out with its ruling. Matt Sharp will be following
each step of the way for Alliance Defending Freedom Again
they do great work. Be sure to follow him on
X at Matt Sharp EIGHTF Matt. We'll keep in touch.
We'll see where this goes, and we'll have you back
on to discuss it.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Okay, sounds great, appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Matt Sharp joining us here on Ryan Schuling Live and
wrapping up our number one.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
We have some Trump hot takes. We come back after
this
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