Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Says Child Sex Change Bans Are ‘Sort Of The Same Thing’ As Interracial Marriage Bans

Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson compared child sex change bans to interracial marriage prohibitions on Wednesday.

Jackson made the remarks during a hearing for United States v. Skrmetti, a case considering whether Tennessee’s law banning medical procedures intended to enable “minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex,” violates the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. She likened the current issue to the 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court case that reversed Virginia’s rule barring interracial marriage.

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“What was most interesting about the potential comparison to Loving is that in that case everyone seemed to concede up front that a racial classification was being drawn by the statute. That was sort of like the starting point,” Jackson said. “The question was whether it was discriminatory because it applied to both races and it wasn’t necessarily invidious or whatever. But you know, as I read … the case here, you know, the court starts off by saying that Virginia is now one of sixteen states which prohibited and punishes marriages on the basis of racial classifications.”