'Forcefully disagrees': Liberal justice breaks Supreme Court protocol in dissent
Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor was so upset with the majority conservative decision upholding a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors, that she broke a longstanding protocol when writing her dissent.
The court voted 6-3 Wednesday. Sotomayor wrote the dissent for the liberal justices.
"Essentially, the key point of contention here is, does this Tennessee law discriminate based on sex? The majority said no... it treats minors differently based on what their diagnosed condition is," said CNN's Elie Honig.
"But the dissent forcefully disagrees here," Honig said, pointing out that the dissent was actually longer than the main opinion.
In the dissent, Sotomayor argued, "Of course this law discriminates based on sex. She says a boy cannot receive estrogen treatments, but a girl minor can. And, so, she says, therefore, it definitely does, in her dissenting opinion, discriminate on the basis of sex."
Honig then pointed out what he called Sotomayor's "heartfelt" reasoning.
"She writes that the law does discriminate based on sex, and she says, 'It also authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them because there is no constitutional justification for that result. I dissent."
Honig called that last line "notable."
"Traditionally, when a justice dissents, they end with 'I respectfully dissent.' We have taken note of a few times over the past few years, and this is another one, where the justice does not say 'respectfully,' just says, 'I dissent.' So, a pitched disagreement here between the conservative majority and the liberals in the dissent."