Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Gender-Affirming Care for Minors
On Wednesday, June 18, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors. The vote was 6-to-3, along conservative/liberal lines, NPR’s Nina Totenberg reported. “In the last few years, fully half the states have adopted similar bans, leaving the other half, so far, allowing gender affirming care in the form of, at a minimum, hormone treatments prior to a teenager turning 18.”
The Tennessee law was adopted in 2023, prohibiting youth from using hormones and puberty blockers for gender transition care. ‘The challenge to the ban was brought by three transgender teens, their parents, and a doctor who treats young people whose gender identity is different than their sex assigned at birth,” Ann E. Marimow reported for The Washington Post.
Chief Justice Roberts delivered the opinion of the court. “The current standards recognize known risks associated with the provision of sex transition treatments to adolescents, including potential adverse effects on fertility and the possibility that an adolescent will later wish to detransition,” Roberts wrote. Adding to the argument, he wrote, “Health authorities in a number of European countries have raised significant concerns regarding the potential harms associated with using puberty blockers and hormones to treat transgender minors.”
In a dissent for the court’s three liberal justices, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims.”
Anthony Wright, executive director of the non-profit, Families USA, issued a statement shortly after the ruling. “This decision is not just a loss for trans youth and their families seeking health care, but another blow for all patients and their families across the country to get the best medical treatment they need without political interference. Virtually all medical associations and authorities in the United States have developed guidelines detailing the gender-affirming care that is medically necessary for trans youth. Tennessee legislators, and now the Supreme Court, want to trump medical professionals and take away those decisions from youth, their families, and their doctors.”
“Health and consumer advocates stand in solidarity and support with trans and LGBTQ communities, with women and their reproductive health, and with communities across the country to ensure that all Americans have access to health care. Young patients should be able to make decisions about their health care with their parents and providers without politicians getting in the way,” Wright furthermore said in his statement.
“The attacks on essential healthcare for trans young people are part of an attempt to erase scapegoated communities from public life,” Amanda Goad, the Audrey Irmas director of the Gender, Sexuality, and Reproductive Justice Project at the ACLU Foundation of Southern California, said in a statement.
Meanwhile, the Arkansas ban on gender-affirming care remains blocked, according to the ACLU. “The conservative Family Council called the SCOTUS decision a ‘victory for families and children everywhere,’” Alex Kienlen for KARK reported. “Similar Arkansas legislation titled “The SAFE Act” is currently prevented from going into effect under a temporary restraining order, pending a ruling from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals.”
“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court is a win not just for Tennessee but also for many other states, including Arkansas, that have passed similar laws protecting children,” Arkansas’ Attorney General Griffin said in a statement.
“Twenty-five states restrict doctors from providing puberty blockers, hormone therapies or surgery to transgender minors. Two other states, New Hampshire and Arizona, ban only surgeries,” Abbie VanSickle explained for The New York Times. “The states that allow medical treatment for transgender youth — many of them Democratic-led states on the West Coast and in the Northeast — will be able to continue providing such treatment,” VanSickle noted. Furthermore, “the court’s majority took pains to explain that its ruling in a previous case decided in 2020, Bostock v. Clayton County, was not affected by the transgender medical care ruling.”
