21 Yale Philosophers File Amicus Brief on Case about Medical Care for Transgender Minors

“Amici are professors of philosophy who are trained to identify flaws in arguments. Philosophers assess arguments in a variety of ways, but most relevant here is by examining the logical structure of arguments. This requires identifying the premises underlying arguments as well as the ways that arguments can attempt to hide those premises.” So begins the amici curiae brief submitted yesterday on behalf of twenty-one philosophy faculty at Yale University in the Supreme Court case of United States v. Skrmetti. The case concerns whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,” violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. Tennessee’s defense of the law involves the claim that it does not classify minors by sex, and so is not subject to heightened scrutiny (that is, it need not shoulder the burden of proving to the court that its law involves a classification that is substantially related to serving an important state interest). In their brief, the philosophers argue that this is false, and the Tennessee law does “classify by sex.” They write: Tennessee tries to argue that its statute is not sex-based, but its arguments contain a fallacy. More specifically, Tennessee’s arguments contain the question-begging fallacy—that is, the arguments assume the truth of the conclusions within their premises. In addition, by prohibiting treatment “inconsistent” with a minor’s sex, Tennessee enforces sex-specific stereotypes, which again demonstrates that its law does classify by sex. The philosophers who signed the brief are: David Charles, Timothy Clarke, Stephen Darwall, Robin Dembroff, Keith DeRose, Claudia Dumitru, Paul Franks, Robert Gooding-Williams, Verity Harte, Lily Hu, Brad Inwood, Shelly Kagan, Joshua Knobe, Jacob McNulty, L.A. Paul, Thomas Pogge, Jason Stanley, Zoltán Szabó, Timothy Williamson, Kenneth Winkler, and Gideon Yaffe. The full brief is below (and also here). 
The post https://dailynous.com/2024/09/04/21-yale-philosophers-file-amicus-brief-on-case-about-medical-care-for-transgender-minors/
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https://dailynous.com/2024/09/04/21-yale-philosophers-file-amicus-brief-on-case-about-medical-care-for-transgender-minors/ 

 Interesting