Gael Urquia, a young, transgender activist, speaks about the recent Supreme Court decision which upholds a ban on gender-affirming care for minors
Transgender people in the US were dealt both a temporary victory and a major blow last week as courts took on two significant cases.
On June 17, a federal court in Massachusetts expanded a preliminary injunction allowing transgender people to obtain passports with sex designations consistent with their gender identity. The court required the State Department to issue such passports until a ruling is obtained in the case of Orr v. Trump, which challenges President Donald Trump’s executive order mandating that passports bear only a person’s sex designation assigned at birth.
Transgender activist Gael Urquia was elated by the news. “Trump’s policy is an attack on our autonomy, our human rights to have a passport that aligns with our gender identity. It’s an attack on our safety. And I’m hoping that the Supreme Court sees that and recognizes that what the Trump administration is doing is inhumane,” he said in an interview with American Community Media.
Urquia’s elation was short-lived. A day later, the Supreme Court — on a 6-3 vote — upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Tennessee’s SB1 bans hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgery for those under 18. It also prohibits gender-affirming care via tele-health, denying youth the mental health support they may need while transitioning.
24 states have similar laws banning gender-affirming care.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a scathing dissent, which she read from the bench. “By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly when it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.” Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan joined Sotomayor in dissenting.
Urquia said the Supreme Court decision is damning with widespread ramifications for the transgender community. Here are portions of his interview with ACoM.
Gael, what was your initial reaction when you heard the news of the Supreme Court decision?
It was absolutely devastating. This ruling is a devastating setback for transgender youth, non-binary youth, intersex youth, and their families. It places politics above medical expertise. It strips parents of their right to make essential decisions in healthcare, along with a professional and certified doctor. And it was absolutely devastating to see what our youth could potentially now encounter the next coming years.
What message did the Court send to transgender youth with its majority decision?
It felt like trans youth voices and concerns don’t matter to the Supreme Court. And it’s really frustrating because their repetitive rhetoric is ‘we want to protect the youth.’ But yet with this ban, youth mental health is going to go down. Kids’ well-being is going to go down.
I can definitely see this impacting the mental health of trans youth. They already go through so much: discrimination in schools, with their friends, with colleagues, parents, even sports. And so that’s already weighing so much in our youth, trans or not. Because transphobia affects everyone.
Our existence is resistance.
How old were you when you started the process of transitioning and how important was gender affirming care in not only your decision to transition, but in the process of transitioning?
That’s an awesome question. So I started socially transitioning in college during the pandemic. That’s when I really started owning my identities and accepting who I was and sharing those with colleagues, with folks I felt safe with.
Now, medically transitioning I did not start until May of 2024. So it has been a year of having the privilege and the access to be able to medically transition. And it was a huge decision for me because I knew that with hormone replacement therapy, I would feel most affirmed for myself. I didn’t do it for anybody else. I didn’t do it for folks to see me how I want to be seen. I did it for myself.
My mental health is going better. My sense of self is a lot better. I’m thriving because I’m in an environment that’s allowing me to thrive.
Many medical experts say that early transitioning helps youth struggle less with who they are. Many politicians argue against that. At what age did you know that you were ready to transition?
I knew I was trans when I was a teen. And at that time, I didn’t know that what I was experiencing in that moment was dysphoria with my chest, dysphoria with the pitch of my voice. I had no idea that such language existed until going to seek therapy and reading upon trans people because we’ve always existed in different cultural diasporas.
Republicans say, ‘well, how would they know? They don’t know themselves yet.’ I think we underestimate the sense of self that youth really do have for themselves. Youth have their own autonomy and they need to be able to exercise that same autonomy.
Would your parents have supported you at 13 if you told them that you wanted to transition?
I would have to say no, simply due to their own religious beliefs at the time. I would definitely say that my family has evolved and has come to terms and has complete acceptance for me. But at the time, when I was a teenager, they were in their own journeys of understanding trans people.
Should we look back then at this point in our lives and say, ‘would you support me?’ I could definitely say now with total sincerity, absolutely. Because they’re listening to trans folks. They’re listening to their stories. They’re listening to their experiences. And that’s who we should be listening to: trans people about their own experiences rather than politicians who have no expertise or knowledge on this topic.
