Associate Justice Clarence Thomas has never been shy about telling it like it is in his Supreme Court opinions. So, it came as little surprise when he demolished the so-called “expert class” in the high court’s Wednesday opinion in U.S. v. Skrmetti.

In a 6-3 ruling, SCOTUS deemed a Tennessee law prohibiting the surgical and chemical castration of minors does not violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The decision came along ideological lines, with all six Republican appointees voting in the affirmative and all three Democrat appointees dissenting.

While signing onto Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority opinion in the case, Thomas also authored a separate concurring opinion “to address some additional arguments made in defense of Tennessee’s law.” It was here that the Court’s most senior justice shattered attempts by plaintiffs — which included the Biden administration — to “accord outsized credit to claims about medical consensus and expertise.”

Thomas noted that the Biden administration “asserted that ‘the medical community and the nation’s leading hospitals overwhelmingly agree’ with the Government’s position that the treatments outlawed by SB1 can be medically necessary,” with the implication being “that courts should defer to so-called expert consensus.” However, the George H.W. Bush appointee argued, “There are several problems with appealing and deferring to the authority of the expert class.”

“First, so-called experts have no license to countermand the ‘wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices.’ … Second, contrary to the representations of the United States and the private plaintiffs, there is no medical consensus on how best to treat gender dysphoria in children,” Thomas wrote. “Third, notwithstanding the alleged experts’ view that young children can provide informed consent to irreversible sex-transition treatments, whether such consent is possible is a question of medical ethics that States must decide for themselves. Fourth, there are particularly good reasons to question the expert class here, as recent revelations suggest that leading voices in this area have relied on questionable evidence, and have allowed ideology to influence their medical guidance.”

“Taken together,” the senior justice wrote, “this case serves as a useful reminder that the American people and their representatives are entitled to disagree with those who hold themselves out as experts, and that courts may not ‘sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation.'”

But Thomas wasn’t finished.

He later went on to dispel the notion that the supposed consensus of these so-called “experts” overrides the Constitution and the will of the American people as expressed through their elected representatives. He wrote, “Thus, whether ‘major medical organizations’ agree with the result of Tennessee’s democratic process is irrelevant.”

“To hold otherwise would permit elite sentiment to distort and stifle democratic debate under the guise of scientific judgment, and would reduce judges to mere ‘spectators . . . in construing our Constitution,'” Thomas added, later referencing SCOTUS’s 2022 Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade.

Throughout the remainder of his concurring opinion, the senior justice disputed plaintiffs’ arguments that there is “’overwhelming evidence’ support[ing] the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for treating pediatric gender dysphoria, and that this view represents ‘the overwhelming consensus of the medical community.'” He cited research from medical professionals whose findings showed such procedures pose harmful risks to minors and argued that states have “a legitimate interest” in questioning “whether they are ethical.”

“This case carries a simple lesson: In politically contentious debates over matters shrouded in scientific uncertainty, courts should not assume that self-described experts are correct,” Thomas wrote. “

Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood