Supreme Court Hears Major Transgender Rights Case Over Tennessee Child Care Ban

Supreme Court Hears Major Transgender Rights Case Over Tennessee Child Care Ban

Washington- On Wednesday, the Supreme Court asks for the first time whether states can restrict access to gender-affirming care for minors with gender dysphoria, thereby entering the politically charged debate over health care for transgender youth.

About half of states have enacted laws banning puberty blockers or hormone therapy for those under 18, and the dispute brought by the Biden administration, three families and a doctor tests whether states are crossing a constitutional line by regulating transgender medical care. According to adolescents, it is crucial for their well-being.

The oral arguments in the case, known as US v. Skrmetti, are broadcast live in the player above.

The case involves a Tennessee law known as SB1 that was adopted in March 2023. It prohibits health care providers from administering puberty blockers or hormone therapy if they are intended to enable “a minor to identify or live as a purported identity inconsistent with their gender.” The state argued that it had a “compelling interest in encouraging minors to appreciate their gender, particularly around the time of puberty,” and prohibiting treatments that “might encourage minors to disregard their gender.”

Puberty blockers and hormones are allowed when prescribed to treat a birth defect, early puberty, or another condition. The law took effect July 1, 2023, but transgender teens who started treatment before that date had until March 31 to phase out their treatment.

Tennessee’s law is part of a wave of measures passed by GOP-led states in recent years banning gender-affirming care for minors suffering from gender dysphoria. President-elect Donald Trump also committed to restricting medical treatments for transgender teens and ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports, another area where states have promulgated bans.

United States vs. Skrmetti

State lawmakers argued they were trying to protect young people from “the life-altering risks of uncertain gender transition interventions,” and said the treatments are “risky” and “unproven “. The law, Tennessee officials told the Supreme Court, sets limits on medical care based on age and use, and is a routine exercise of state regulatory authority. of medicine.

“The government is questioning the judgment of elected legislators and asking this court to do the same,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti argued in a high court filing. “But this court should not stifle legislative developments in a rapidly evolving field by enshrining the government’s biased science into the Constitution.”

But the Biden administration, along with the three Tennessee families and the Memphis doctor, say the state’s ban draws lines based on sex and discriminates based on transgender status, a violation of the guarantee equal protection of the Constitution.

“An adolescent assigned female at birth cannot receive puberty blockers or testosterone to live and present as a man, but an adolescent assigned male at birth can. And vice versa, an adolescent assigned female at birth cannot. A teenager assigned male at birth cannot receive puberty blockers or estrogen to live and present as female, but an adolescent assigned female at birth can,” she wrote. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar in a memoir. “It’s sexual discrimination.”

Shortly before the Tennessee law took effect, families with transgender children and Dr. Susan Lacy, who provided gender-affirming care to patients diagnosed with gender dysphoria, challenged the ban before a federal court, arguing that it was unconstitutional. The Biden administration then intervened.

A federal district court blocked the lawconcluding that it discriminates on the basis of sex and transgender status and is likely unconstitutional. The judge ruled that “the benefits of medical procedures prohibited by SB1 are well established”, and declared that the law prohibits treatments to “a tiny fraction of minors, while leaving them accessible to all other minors (who would be subject (to the same rules) risks that the State claims SB1 is intended to eradicate).

A divided panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit later overturned that decision and authorized the Tennessee ban take effect while the legal proceedings continue. According to the court, this measure regulates gender-affirming care for all minors, regardless of their sex.

“Federal judges for life should be wary of removing a new and thorny topic of medical debate from the ebb and flow of democracy by interpreting a largely unamendable Constitution to occupy the field,” wrote Chief Justice Jeffrey Sutton.

The Biden administration and the families, represented by the ACLU, separately asked the Supreme Court to review the 6th Circuit’s decision. The High Court in June agreed to do itbut only took up the Biden administration’s appeal, which asked the justices to decide whether Tennessee’s law violated the Equal Protection Clause. The parents argued that the law infringed on their due process rights to make decisions about their children’s medical care, but judges are not weighing that issue.

Among the questions the Biden administration has asked the Supreme Court to consider is whether the 6th Circuit applied the wrong standard when evaluating the constitutionality of the Tennessee law. The lower court held that the ban was subject to rational review, the most deferential of the three levels of review. But Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar argued the law should be subject to a stricter level of judicial review, known as enhanced scrutiny, because it classifies based on sex and discriminates based on transgender status.

If the Supreme Court agrees with the Biden administration, it could send the case back to the lower court to apply this more demanding standard, as Prelogar asks it to do.

Prelogar is scheduled to argue on behalf of the United States on Wednesday and she will split her time with the ACLU’s Chase Strangio, who will make history as the first openly transgender person to argue before the Supreme Court. Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice will present the state’s case to the justices.

It is the most important transgender rights case that the Supreme Court, now with a 6-3 conservative majority, has heard in years. In 2020, the High Court divided 6-3 concluding that Title VII’s protections against workplace discrimination extend to gay and transgender employees. Justice Neil Gorsuch authored the majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and the four liberal members.

A Supreme Court decision in the case is expected by the end of June.