Former Republican Rep.: GOP Should Uphold Conservative Values, Abandon Culture Wars on Trans Youth | Opinion

As a former Republican member of Congress who spent many years working to advance Republican politics and policies. I've always believed in the power of free markets and free people, and government that doesn't recklessly intervene in the personal lives of Americans. That last principle is an especially important caution when it involves decisions that are and ought to be solely the private concern of families.

When I served in Congress, the policies supported by most of my Republican colleagues reflected those essentially conservative values. I believe those values are still shared by most Americans, but lately, many elected Republicans have chosen to abandon the prohibition from interfering in sensitive family matters, especially when it comes to families of transgender Americans.

Disappointingly, the Trump administration has in its first few months in office, joined those who argue for substituting the government's judgment for the judgment of parents when it comes to caring for their transgender children.

President Donald Trump's successful campaign for a second term focused on two central issues—lowering the cost of living and reestablishing control of our southern border. Few Americans rallied to the president's side because they expected him to intrude in difficult and deeply personal issues confronting a comparatively small number of American families.

But just a few days after his inauguration, the president signed an executive order that targeted families grappling with decisions of how best to care for their transgender members, imposing the government's knee jerk opinion on parents whose reasoning is informed by deep personal knowledge of their children and the advice of physicians, ministers, and counselors familiar with their circumstances.

Republicans of good faith might disagree on some policies affecting transgender Americans, but are these issues of such transcendent importance to the American people that they should receive the same priority attention that fighting inflation and protecting our borders receive? More to the point, are transgender Americans such an alarming reality to some Republicans that it mandates overruling the conservative reluctance to violate the privacy of families? I don't think so, and I doubt most Americans feel differently.

While increasing numbers of Republicans have targeted the families of transgender Americans, some traditional Republicans such as Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas and Mike DeWine in Ohio have held fast to their conservative principles and come to the defense of transgender youths.

Former Governor Asa Hutchinson vetoed his legislature's attack on transgender families, denouncing it as "a vast government overreach" that set "new standards of legislative interference with physicians and parents." He warned that the state "should not presume to jump into every ethical health decision." I couldn't agree more.

That's why I joined over 30 other conservatives who filed an amicus brief in the Supreme Court case U.S. v. Skrmetti, a case challenging a Tennessee law that prohibits any transgender care for teens regardless of what parents and their child—working with medical professionals—decide is in the best interest of the child.

This case boils down to who should make sensitive medical decisions—parents who know their child best and love them the most, or the government. If the government is allowed to usurp the parents' role with a one-size-fits-all law, it could open a Pandora's box of big government interventions in family life. As we said in our brief:

"States have no business overruling the decisions of fit parents who make an informed medical choice for their children that is supported by their doctors, by the medical profession more generally, by the children themselves, and by their conscience."

Steven Calabresi, a founder of the conservative Federalist Society, joined in another amicus brief, writing:

"Choices about marriage, family life, and the upbringing of children are among [the] associational rights this [Supreme] Court has ranked as 'of basic importance in our society,' rights sheltered by the Fourteenth Amendment against the State's unwarranted usurpation, disregard, or disrespect."

These laws single out a vulnerable minority and deny only those suffering from diagnosed gender dysphoria the right to receive essential medical treatments—even with parental consent. The same treatments they are denied are available to families whose children suffer from other conditions related to puberty and gender, such as early onset of puberty or other health care situations requiring hormone therapy.

As with many complex health decisions involving children, a bit of humility is in order. Reasonable people can disagree about specific choices, but these sensitive ongoing discussions shouldn't be in a court or in legislatures; they should be left to families.

The issue here isn't whether you agree with any parent who makes this medical choice—but whether, as Governor Hutchinson pointed out, the state should be "the definitive oracle of medical care, overriding parents, patients and health care experts."

Ultimately, the Court's ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti could have far-reaching implications for all Americans' rights to make private decisions about health care—from contraception to fertility treatments—free from political interference. A restrained and conservative government would reject such vast overreach.

Barbara Comstock is a Republican former member of Congress from Virginia, a former delegate in the Virginia General Assembly, and a former senior Capitol Hill staffer and Justice Department official.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.