Amid the exchange of well-deserved congratulations after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law protecting minors from gender transition procedures, spare a thought for the transgender ideologues who control America’s major medical associations. When America’s elected representatives — and unelected justices — simply ignore their most solemn pronouncements about what “The Science” says, what is an “expert” to do?

It seems that their first reaction was to lash out with the defiant fury of a woman spurned. “Regardless of today’s legal ruling,” insisted Susan Kressly, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, “the science still supports gender-affirming care. … Gender-affirming care is medically necessary for treating gender dysphoria.” In fact, Kressly claimed “gender-affirming care” was a necessary part of providing “transgender and gender-diverse youth … the same standard of compassionate, evidence-based care as every other child.”

But Justice Clarence Thomas already addressed this line of argument in his Skrmetti concurrence, which warned about overly crediting “claims about medical consensus and expertise.” An expert’s testimony is only worth as much as his expertise. A doctor’s expertise cannot extend beyond the limits of medical science. On the effects of treating minors with gender transition procedures, scientific inquiry has not advanced very far at all.

“In this case, the experts have consistently said that this treatment is great for kids, but there’s increasing research showing that it absolutely is not,” asserted Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee attorney general, on “This Week on Capitol Hill.” “There’s evidence that the research showing it is fraudulent. You see these Western European countries prohibiting and restricting these treatments.”

“This is an area where we’re seeing a lot of changes in American government,” Skrmetti said. “Since the New Deal, there’s been a lot of deference to bureaucratic experts within the government, and a lot of deference to scientific experts outside the government, that’s been ported into our Constitution by judges who are reluctant to let the people make these decisions.”

But “we have a dynamic system, and part of the checks and balances of our system means that different parts of government, different ideas wax and wane. And this [moment] really is a renewal of popular sovereignty,” he added. “The dynamics underlying the Trump elections have been a real concern with the way that American government has been stratified, and the people … [and] the states have been cut out of a lot of the process. … People want … to have some voice in the process.”

The era of deference to “experts” resulted in many political decisions made by professional bureaucrats. But “when you have a regulatory process that makes all the policy decisions, when you have people running to courts to resolve policy disagreements, that means everyday Americans don’t have a real opportunity to participate,” Skrmetti explained.

But this era of “rule by expert” was a fundamental aberration from America’s governmental system, which relies on public participation as its lifeblood. Though the era leaves an enduring mark, the American people were always bound to reassert themselves.

At first, officials tried to mediate bureaucratic rulemaking through the courts. But those courts — stocked with activist judges — provided a cold consolation to a free people. “When courts decide something’s a constitutional right, that slams the door shut on any changes, on any revisiting based on new evidence,” described Skrmetti. “But, when it’s a democratic process, it’s constantly dynamic and it lets the people feel invested in the outcome. They don’t feel alienated from the decisions being imposed on them.”

The issue of gender transition procedures for minors is one such matter that cannot be adequately settled in court because the relevant scientific, ethical, and legal questions are still hotly debated.

“The court recognized this is an ongoing debate, that there’s new evidence coming in, that there are many voices to be heard, and that the people who should balance the competing evidence are the elected representatives,” Skrmetti summarized. There “shouldn’t be one judge making the call. It shouldn’t be deference to the medical establishment. This is an issue where — as in many cases in America — we resolve our differences through elections, through argument, and through voting.”

As a result, the court “didn’t rule that these types of procedures can’t be done,” observed FRC President Tony Perkins. “They just said that state legislative bodies, who are elected by the people, have the right to make the policies that protect or expose minors to these types of procedures.”

Skrmetti sees this court result as part of “a sudden … hard pivot toward more accountability, where the people are less willing to trust experts, where the people are less willing to defer to bureaucrats.” As a result of this pivot, he believes there is room for “a much bigger legislative role for the states, the laboratories of democracy to hash these things out, reach their own conclusions in a very transparent way, and where new evidence is able to be worked into the process.”

“At the end of the day, [this pivot is] just reinforcing the basic mechanics of American government, which is: ‘The People’ make the decisions,” continued Skrmetti. “The Constitution sets guardrails. But where the Constitution doesn’t clearly prohibit the states from doing something, the states are free to decide through democratic processes.”

Of course, a significant part of defending America’s system happens in court, and that defense begins by installing judges who will follow the Constitution. The Skrmetti ruling “points out once again,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on “This Week on Capitol Hill,” that elections really do have consequences, especially at the presidential level, because the appointment of who serves on that court determines these fateful decisions.”

“There are a lot of cases left over from the Biden administration, involving regulators that were trying to close the door on state legislative decision-making … for instance, what schools can do” about sex distinctions, Skrmetti mused. He predicted that the Supreme Court precedent bearing his name will have an effect, not by directly determining other verdicts, “but as an indicator of the court’s deference to the people as opposed to deference to the elites.”

Unsurprisingly, the Supreme Court’s turn toward constitutional modesty and respect for popular sovereignty faces opposition from those who benefited from the era of “rule by expert.” The Skrmetti decision faces criticism not only from politically captured medical associations, but also from partisans ideologically committed to the transgender cause.

On Wednesday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) complained, “The Supreme Court seems to have forgotten that one of their jobs is to protect individual rights and protect individuals from being discriminated against. It’s an awful decision.” To that, Johnson responded, “Chuck Schumer is on the exact wrong side of every single issue. He seems to have forgotten that states have the right to legislate in these areas.”

For that is the central point, said Skrmetti. “The heart of this decision is returning power to the people through their elected representatives, rather than deferring to the experts or letting federal judges decide what policy should be,” he said.