US Supreme Court Signals Towards Upholding Youth Transgender Care Ban
On December 4, conservative U.S. Supreme Court justices signaled to support a Republican-backed ban in Tennessee on gender-affirming care for transgender youth in a major case that could impact various other state laws targeting transgender people. Last week, Reuters’ reporters Andrew Chung and John Kruzel noted that “the administration and other challengers have argued that Tennessee's law discriminates against adolescents based on sex and transgender status, violating the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment promise of equal protection.”
“The court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority, heard arguments in an appeal by Democratic President Joe Biden's administration of a lower court's decision upholding Tennessee's law barring medical treatments such as puberty blockers and hormones for people under age 18 experiencing gender dysphoria,” Chung and Kruzel reported.
“Whatever the court decides will affect the law in Tennessee and the 23 other states that have banned similar treatments in recent years,” Ann E. Marimow reported for The Washington Post. Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh repeatedly suggested that medical policies and technical questions about gender transition care for minors should be left to the states, Marimow wrote.
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,” Marimow explained.
