By Breitbart News Network | Created at 2024-12-06 00:58:27 | Updated at 2024-12-24 12:39:05
2 weeks ago
Actress Annette Bening rallied outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday as justices heard oral arguments in a case surrounding Tennessee’s law banning sex change drugs and procedures for minors who believe they are transgender.
The American Beauty star pressed for confused minors to have access to sex-mutilating drugs and surgeries, and called upon her experience with her own daughter, Stephen Ira Beatty, who identifies as a man.
“I have four beautiful children, and I’m allowed to brag about my children ’cause they’re mine. And my eldest is a remarkable trans man, an extraordinary human being,” she said to a crowd of people outside the nation’s highest court. “As a well-meaning parent, I didn’t always know how to support my teenager — my vulnerable teenager who was just trying to live his truth. But you know what? I learned.”
“I learned that what these kids and families need is judicious counseling, sound medical advice, and an atmosphere of calm and love and acceptance,” she continued. “Our trans kid and all trans folks need to be seen and heard. There is nothing to be frightened of.”
Bening went on to assert that people who identify as transgender “are everywhere” and that it is “our responsibility to support and love them.”
“I think the greatest gift of my life is to have kids, and to have a transgender child has made me so much more interesting, so much more wise,” she said with a touch of humor to her voice, as the crowd cheered and laughed.
“And for the Supreme Court justices, I encourage them to talk to their kids, their grandkids, their nieces and nephews, because I’ll bet if they really sit down and ask them, do you know trans kids around you? Do you have any non-binary friends? They’re going to say yes. And they’re going to say that this is part of the beautiful rainbow of human beings everywhere,” she concluded.
Bening has previously spoken in favor of sex changes for minors, claiming that parents who allow such procedures simply want “what is best” for their child. She also previously said her transgender child is “such an inspiration” to her, and wished everyone would have a trans person in their family in order to truly “get it.”
RELATED: Mothers Pushing Transgenderism on Children Seek ‘Mama Bear Crusade’
The Biden administration ultimately asked the Supreme Court to reverse a ruling from the Ohio-based 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upholding Tennessee’s law protecting minors from sex-mutilating drugs and surgeries.
“This is a relatively new diagnosis with ever-shifting approaches to care over the last decade or two. Under these circumstances, it is difficult for anyone to be sure about predicting the long-term consequences of abandoning age limits of any sort for these treatments,” Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton, who was joined by Judge Amul Thapar, wrote for the 6th Circuit.
As almost half of the United States has passed laws barring minors from obtaining transgender drugs and surgeries, the resulting Supreme Court ruling will likely have wide-ranging impacts for the future of so-called “gender-affirming care,” as well as parental rights.
READ MORE: Transgender Curbs Protect Children, Not Sexism, Lawyer Tell SCOTUS
The side effects for sex change drugs and procedures can be severe, including irreversible mutilation and infertility. Some of these so-called treatments include double mastectomies (the removal of healthy breasts), female and male genital mutilation and removal, facial feminization and masculinization, hormone treatments, and puberty blockers that can cause chemical sterilization. Puberty blockers can also have long-term impact on bone growth, bone density, and growth spurts, according to Mayo Clinic.
Transgender activists frequently claim that such sex-mutilating drugs and procedures for confused minors reduce suicides and improve mental health — dubious claims which increasingly appear untrue as more studies and data come to light.
Other research has indicated that a majority of children who are confused about their sex grow out of that feeling by the time they become adults. Opponents of sex changes for minors argue that it is impossible for young people to comprehend and legally consent to the potential lasting impacts of these drugs and surgeries.
European countries that pushed sex change drugs and surgeries for minors before the United States are notably reversing course over concerns about long-term impacts.
In the United States, the top-down push for minors to obtain sex-mutilating drugs and surgeries under the misleading moniker “gender-affirming care” is clear, promulgated by President Joe Biden’s White House, academia, large hospitals, and major medical organizations.
READ MORE: Biden Administration Promotes Transgender Sex-Change Surgery, Puberty Blockers for Minors
At the root, these actors, along with the proliferation of gender ideology on social media, ultimately promote the false idea that human beings can be a different sex than what they were born as. Even further, the gender ideology complex claims these individuals should take sex-change drugs and get sex-change procedures to align their outward appearance with how they feel on the inside.
While the push toward transgenderism is heavily ideological, a report released in December 2020 found that the U.S. sex reassignment surgery market size was valued at $267 million in 2019 and is expected to expand at a compound annual growth rate of 14.4 percent from 2020 to 2027.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
