Supreme Court allows Idaho to enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youths
The Supreme Court is allowing Idaho to enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth while lawsuits over the law proceed, reversing lower courts.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court is allowing Idaho to enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth while lawsuits over the law proceed, reversing lower courts.
The justices’ order Monday allows the state to put in a place a 2023 law that subjects physicians to up to 10 years in prison if they provide hormones, puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care to people under age 18. Under the court’s order, the two transgender teens who sued to challenge the law still will be able to obtain care.
The court’s three liberal justices would have kept the law on hold.
A federal judge in Idaho had blocked the law in its entirety after determining that it was necessary to do so to protect the teens, who are identified under pseudonyms in court papers.
Opponents of the law have said it will likely increase suicide rates among teens. The law’s backers have said it is necessary to “protect children” from medical or surgical treatments for gender dysphoria, though there’s little indication that gender-affirming surgeries are being performed on transgender youth in Idaho.
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