Upcoming Supreme Court decision could transform transgender health care
The Supreme Court is expected to hear arguments Wednesday on a case focused on restrictions to transgender care. The decision could have broad impacts for years to come.
The Supreme Court will consider a law restricting transition-related health care for minors for the first time Wednesday, and legal experts say the court’s decision could affect access to transition-related care nationwide for both minors and adults for decades to come.
The key legal question the court will consider is whether a Tennessee law that bars puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for trans minors discriminates on the basis of sex.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal argue that it does, because it prohibits such care only as treatment for gender dysphoria. The law makes exceptions for minors who need the treatments for other reasons. Puberty blockers, for example, can be used to treat children who experience precocious, or early, puberty, and physicians can still perform surgery on infants who are born with sex characteristics that fall outside the standard male or female binary.
Just days after the ACLU filed suit against Tennessee’s law in April 2023, the Justice Department intervened and filed its own complaint against the law, arguing that it discriminates against trans youths on the basis of sex and transgender status in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court granted the Biden administration’s appeal of a 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding Tennessee’s law. The court won’t consider the part of the law that bans surgery, which wasn’t covered by the lower court’s injunction.
In his reply brief to the Supreme Court, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti argued that the law doesn’t discriminate based on sex but rather “draws a line between minors seeking drugs for gender transition and minors seeking drugs for other medical purposes” and that “boys and girls fall on both sides of that line.” The attorney general’s office also argues that there is uncertainty around the risks and benefits of transition care for minors and that the state is allowed to pass legislation in an effort to protect minors.
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