Supreme Court to consider major ruling on child gender reassignment surgery after Biden administration appeal

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to rule on the legality of a Republican-backed Tennessee ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, as the justices weighed another controversial issue involving LGBT rights.

They appealed Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration of a lower court’s ruling upholding a ban on medical treatments, including hormones and surgeries, for minors suffering from gender dysphoria in Tennessee.

The court will hear the case during its next term, which begins in October.

Opponents argue that the ban on care for transgender youth violates the equal protection and due process guarantees of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by discriminating against these adolescents on the basis of their gender and transgender status, and violating the fundamental right of parents to access medical care and to make decisions regarding medical care for their children. children.

Republican-led states have adopted many similar measures in recent years targeting medication or surgical procedures for adolescents suffering from gender dysphoria — the clinical diagnosis of significant distress that may result from incongruence between gender identities. a person’s gender and the sex assigned to them at birth.

Lawmakers supporting the restrictions have cast doubt on 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 save lives and that long-term studies show its effectiveness.

Tennessee law prohibits health care workers from administering puberty blockers and hormones for purposes “incompatible with the sex of the minor” but allows treatments for congenital conditions or early puberty.

Providers may be sued and face fines and professional disciplinary action for violations.

Several plaintiffs, including two transgender boys and a transgender girl, along with their parents, filed a lawsuit in Tennessee to defend treatments they say improved their happiness and well-being.

The Biden administration intervened in the lawsuit to also challenge the law.

A federal judge blocked Tennessee’s law in 2023, finding it likely violated the 14th Amendment.

In a 2-1 decision in September 2023, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based 6th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the judge’s preliminary injunctions.

“Prohibiting citizens and legislatures from offering their views on high-stakes medical policies, in which compassion for the child cuts both ways, is not something federal judges for life should do ” says the 6th Circuit’s decision.

The Biden administration urged the Supreme Court to take up the case, saying state bans “inflict profound harm on transgender adolescents and their families by denying medical treatment to affected adolescents, their parents and their doctors have all concluded to be appropriate and necessary to treat serious illness. medical condition.

This law is one of several measures adopted by Republicans at the state level to restrict LGBT rights.

These measures also include banning discussion of gender identity in schools, cracking down on drag shows and blocking transgender participation in sports.

The Supreme Court has faced several cases over the past decade involving LGBT rights.

In 2015, same-sex marriage was legalized nationwide.

In 2020, he ruled that a landmark federal law prohibiting workplace discrimination protects gay and transgender employees.

But in 2018, judges ruled in favor of a Denver-area baker who refused, because of his Christian views, to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple.

In 2023, they ruled in a case brought in Washington state that the constitutional right to free speech allows certain businesses to refuse to provide services for same-sex weddings.