Writing this week for Public Discourse, RFI’s Nathan Berkeley argues, “It’s Time for American Elites to Rediscover Human Nature.” Reflecting on last month’s oral argument in the case of United States v. Skrmetti, he writes:

It’s time for American elites to rediscover human nature. Of course, particular aspects of human nature will inevitably be contested, but for too long, large swaths of American elites have acted as if human nature does not even exist.  

Some of the justices during the recent oral arguments…put that elite tendency on full display. For those sitting atop far too many culture-shaping institutions, our “plastic world and plastic selves” can be “shaped in any way we wish.” Having imbibed this ruinous set of assumptions, Justices Kagan, Sotomayor, and Jackson appear blind to the chasm between medical interventions that foster natural human development and those that frustrate that development. The consequent blind spots and errors are enormous, as their exchanges with respondents’ attorneys clearly demonstrate.

US v. Skrmetti considers whether SB1, Tennessee’s ban on “transgender medical treatments” for minors, runs afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Enacted in March 2023, the Tennessee law seeks to protect children from the use of hormone therapy, puberty blockers, and surgery for the purposes of “gender transition.” Twenty-five other states have passed similar laws.

Berkeley concludes:

SB1 treats all minors equally, in accordance with their sex, and it discriminates against all medical interventions that reject a minor’s sex. To arrive at that conclusion, we must recognize what constitutes natural human development for boys and girls, and accept the underlying premise that human nature exists and demands respect.

The demand to recognize and respect human nature is grounded in what is observably true about the human person. And for Christians and many other people of faith, respecting human nature is also, and even more vitally, an act of faithfulness to the God who created it.

Read the full article: “It’s Time for American Elites to Rediscover Human Nature: Lessons from United States v. Skrmetti.“