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The U.S. Supreme Court decided Monday to review the Biden administration’s “equal protection” challenge to Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and transgender surgeries for minors.
The case, U.S. v. Skrmetti, will be argued in the term that starts in October.
It is the first time the high court will consider restrictions on puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for minors.
Tennessee is one of 22 states that has measures banning such medical intervention for minors.
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A federal appeals court had allowed the law in Tennessee and Kentucky to go into effect pending the outcome of ongoing litigation.
“Tennessee adopted a law that said, if you’re under 18, a doctor can’t provide you with hormone treatments or puberty blockers or gender reassignment surgery, for gender purposes. And we were sued by the DOJ, the ACLU and Lambda Legal,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti said in an interview with Fox News last month. “We won in the Sixth Circuit, and now they’re trying to get the US Supreme Court to address that. But the bottom line is the Court of Appeal saw it was states have the authority to decide whether or not these treatments should be legal within their boundaries. And some states authorize them. Some states don’t. That’s the way our system works.”
Among those filing amicus briefs opposing the state law is actor Elliot Page. The Oscar-nominated star of “Juno,” “Inception” and “The Umbrella Academy” is one of 57 transgender people who joined in supporting the Biden administration’s suit.
And the administration in their filing with the high court says 25 states have laws restricting or banning “gender-affirming medical care” for transgender youth. South Carolina last week passed its law.
Republican-led states have enacted a variety of restrictions on transgender surgeries and other medical intervention for minors, arguing in court documents that states have the right to protect child welfare against “experimental gender-transition procedures” and from doctors or medical professionals subjecting minors to “irreversible transitioning treatments.”
While transgender advocates have argued that major medical and mental health professional associations in the United States endorse such procedures, Alabama’s solicitor general, for example, has argued in court filings that “radical” groups responsible for the regulation of endocrine medicine are miring “earnest and profound debate” about how best to help children suffering from gender dysphoria.
Meanwhile, LGBTQ advocacy groups say denying young people transgender procedures is more dangerous.
“The future of countless transgender youth in this and future generations rests on this Court adhering to the facts, the Constitution, and its own modern precedent,” Chase Strangio, Deputy Director for Transgender Justice at the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in a statement on Monday. “These bans represent a dangerous and discriminatory affront to the well-being of transgender youth across the country and their Constitutional right to equal protection under the law. They are the result of an openly political effort to wage war on a marginalized group and our most fundamental freedoms.”
“This Court has historically rejected efforts to uphold discriminatory laws, and without similar action here, these punitive, categorical bans on the provision of gender-affirming care will continue to wreak havoc on the lives of transgender youth and their families,” Tara Borelli, Senior Counsel at Lambda Legal, added. “We are grateful that transgender youth and their families will have their day in the highest court, and we will not stop fighting to ensure access to this life-saving, medically necessary care.”
This is a breaking news story. Check back for updates.
