By Andrew Chung
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court moved on Monday to rule on the legality of a Republican-backed ban in Tennessee on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, as the justices waded into another controversial issue involving LGBT rights .
They were appealed by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration of a lower court’s decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on medical treatments, including hormones and surgery, for minors experiencing gender dysphoria. The court will hear the case during the next hearing, which starts in October.
The challengers argue that banning care for transgender youth violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal protection and due process, by discriminating against these adolescents on the basis of gender and transgender status.
Republican-led states have passed numerous similar measures in recent years that target medications or surgical interventions for adolescents with gender dysphoria — the clinical diagnosis for significant suffering that can result from an incongruity between a person’s gender identity and the gender that defines him or her. assigned to her at birth.
Lawmakers who support the restrictions have questioned the treatments, calling them experimental and potentially harmful. Medical associations, noting that gender dysphoria is associated with higher suicide rates, have said gender-affirming care can be lifesaving and that long-term studies show its effectiveness.
Several plaintiffs — including two transgender boys, a transgender girl and their parents — have filed a lawsuit in Tennessee to defend treatments that they say improved their happiness and well-being. The U.S. Department of Justice intervened in the lawsuit to also challenge the law.
According to Jonathan Skrmetti, Tennessee’s attorney general, the law “protects children from irreversible gender-based abuse” and he looks forward to “ending the fight at the Supreme Court of the United States.”
The law prohibits health professionals from administering puberty blockers and hormones for purposes “contrary to the sex of the minor,” but allows treatments for congenital conditions or early puberty. Providers may be prosecuted and may face fines and professional discipline for violations.
‘CAUSE HAVOC’
Lawyers representing the plaintiffs said they were grateful that these young people and their families would have their day in America’s highest court. The Supreme Court has “rejected efforts to uphold discriminatory laws in the past, and without similar action here, these punitive, categorical bans on providing gender-affirming care will continue to wreak havoc on the lives of transgender youth and their families,” Tara said. Borelli of Lambda Legal, an LGBT legal group.
Attorney Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union said bans like the one in Tennessee pose a “dangerous and discriminatory affront to the well-being of transgender youth across the country” and are “the result of an overtly political effort to wage war on a marginalized group and our most basic freedoms.”
The Justice Department declined to comment Monday.
A federal judge blocked the law in Tennessee in 2023, ruling that it likely violates the 14th Amendment.
In a 2-1 decision in September 2023, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the judge’s preliminary injunction.
“Prohibiting citizens and lawmakers from voicing their views on high-stakes medical policy, in which compassion for the child points in both directions, is not something that federal judges should be doing for life,” the 6th ruling said Circuit.
Urging the Supreme Court to take up the case, the Biden administration said state bans “cause profound harm to transgender adolescents and their families by denying medical treatments that affected adolescents, their parents and their doctors have all concluded they are appropriate and necessary for the treatment of a serious condition. Medical condition.”
The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a separate appeal of the 6th Circuit’s decision, which also upheld a similar law in Kentucky.
The law was one of several measures Republicans pursued at the state level to restrict LGBT rights. Such measures also include a ban on discussion of gender identity in schools, stricter measures against drag shows and blocking transgender participation in sports.
The Supreme Court has heard several cases involving LGBT rights over the past decade. In 2015, the country legalized gay marriage. In 2020, it ruled that a landmark federal law banning workplace discrimination protects gay and transgender workers.
But in 2018, judges ruled in favor of a Denver baker who refused to make a wedding cake for a gay couple based on his Christian views. In 2023, they ruled in a Washington state case that the constitutional right to free speech allows certain businesses to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings.
(Reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham)
