Nine activists were arrested on the steps of the Supreme Court on Friday as they protested the conservative majority’s decision last week to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors.
The ruling in U.S. v Skrmetti affirmed laws passed in Tennessee and 26 other states denying gender-affirming care to trans youth.
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The nine arrested were part of a larger group of 30 activists led by the Gender Liberation Movement (GLM), a self-described national direct-action collective “centering bodily autonomy” in the face of “gender-based sociopolitical threats.”
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Friday’s protest saw nine of the activists self-administering real or symbolic hormone-replacement-therapy drugs, a “gender reveal” of pink and blue smoke, trans flags unfurled across the steps of the court, and speeches by the organizers, including an affirming parent of trans children.
The group’s co-founder, Raquel Willis, was among those taken into custody.
“Gender-affirming care is sacred, powerful, and transformative. With this ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti, we see just how ignorant the Supreme Court is of the experiences of trans youth and their affirming families,” Willis said in a statement before her arrest.
“Everyone deserves the right to holistic healthcare, and trans youth are no different. We will continue to fight for their bodily autonomy, dignity, and self-determination just like previous generations. No court, no law, no government gave us our power, and none can take it away.”
Tennessee’s ban, passed in 2023, denies medically commonplace treatments like hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgery to trans minors, but not to cisgender children. The court disagreed with the plaintiffs in the case that the distinction violated equal protection laws under the Constitution.
After being detained for two hours, the nine arrested were released without charge, according to GLM co-founder Eliel Cruz.
“I am feeling a lot of exhilaration but definitely a lot of pride — go figure — in how we showed up today,” Willis told The Cut after her release. “There’s just been so much silence around this care that has been green-lit to be banned in upwards of 27 states now, but we just want to remind folks that we always have people power on our side. And no matter what ruling comes down, or what bans people try to pass, we still have the right to exist and speak up.”
Cruz called the ruling “a historical moment of fascist attacks,” in remarks to the media, and said the time had arrived for the LGBTQ+ community to “organize and fight back.”
“As a cisgender man, I stand in solidarity with the trans community during these escalating attacks on their safety, well-being, right to exist in this world, and ability to live a future free of violence,” Cruz said. “I’m enraged at the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a ban on gender-affirming care for youth. My heart hurts for the families and young people who this will negatively impact and harm.”
Willis told The Cut that her arrest conjured “our ancestors who faced criminalization just for being themselves, for speaking out. When I was in the back of that paddy wagon, I thought about the queen — the street queen — who essentially demanded that the crowd around her outside of the Stonewall Inn those decades ago do something,” she said. “This was the agenda.”
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