The Supreme Court said Monday it will hear a major case on transgender rights and decide whether states can ban the use of puberty blockers and other hormones for teenagers suffering from gender distress.
The justices have not ruled on whether discrimination based on gender identity is unconstitutional.
However, over the past three years, many Republican-led states have enacted laws banning medical treatments intended to help young people under the age of 18 transition to what the measures describe as a “purported identity incompatible with sex of the minor”.
The Biden administration, the ACLU and Lambda Legal urged the court to hear cases from Tennessee and Kentucky and rule that discrimination against transgender youth violates the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws.
They argued that a law “that targets transgender people for unfavorable treatment” is a form of sex discrimination and should be struck down as unconstitutional.
The court said it would hear arguments in the fall in the Tennessee case.
“We are grateful that transgender youth and their families will have their day in the highest court,” said Tara Borelli, senior attorney at Lambda Legal. If the court does not act, “these categorical and punitive bans on gender-affirming care will continue to wreak havoc on the lives of transgender youth and their families.”
Parents played a leading role in the legal challenges. Samantha Williams and her husband, Brian, had sued in Nashville on behalf of her transgender daughter, identified as LW.
“It is difficult to overstate the difference that our daughter's medical treatment has made in her life and that of our family,” Samantha Williams said when the appeal reached the Supreme Court.
“Before he came out and started receiving this medical care, he struggled to make friends, keep his grades up, or even accept hugs from his family. We now have a happy, confident daughter who is free to be herself. I want the judges to see and understand my daughter and recognize her rights under the Constitution like anyone else, and to see that if parents like me don't have the right to determine what is best for our children, then no parent will. ”. she said.
US Attorney General Elizabeth Prelogar had urged the court to address the issue. She said state laws impose “a categorical ban on evidence-based treatments supported by the overwhelming consensus of the medical community.”
The ACLU and Lambda also said the state laws should be repealed because they “violate the fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding their children's health care.”
But the justices voted to hear the Justice Department's appeal in US v. Skrmetti, who raises only the issue of unconstitutional discrimination, not parental rights.
In defense of his state's law, Tennessee Atty. Gen. Jonathan Skrmetti described it as a measure “to protect children from unproven medical interventions.”
He said the number of minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria has “exploded” in recent years, and states have “seen a corresponding increase in risky, unproven medical interventions for these minor patients.”
He said state lawmakers had “reasonably concluded that the well-documented risks of cross-sex hormones outweigh any purported benefits.”
But the American Academy of Pediatrics, along with 21 other medical and mental health organizations, filed a friendly brief with the Supreme Court to dispute Tennessee's claim that hormone treatments are experimental or ineffective.
They said that about 1.4 million people in the United States are transgender, and about 10% of them are teenagers between 13 and 17 years old. They said, “Research shows that adolescents with gender dysphoria who receive puberty blockers or hormone therapy experience less depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation. . … Prohibiting this type of care can put patients' lives at risk.”
In April, the Williams Institute at UCLA School of Law said 24 states have adopted laws restricting treatment for transgender youth, which could affect about 114,000 minors or more than a third of transgender youth in the United States. But many of those state laws have been temporarily blocked by judges.
If the court rules next year in favor of Tennessee, the decision would likely allow all of these laws to go into effect. But the decision should have no impact in California and other states that have not restricted health care for transgender youth.
The Supreme Court ruled four years ago that discrimination against transgender employees violates the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its prohibition against sex discrimination in the workplace. But the justices have not ruled on whether the Constitution or federal education laws prohibit discrimination against transgender youth or adults.
However, in April, the justices, by a vote of 6 to 3, issued an order that overturned a judge's decision and allowed Idaho to enforce its law banning medical treatments for transgender teens.
A federal judge had also initially blocked the Tennessee law from taking effect last year. But in July, the Ohio-based Sixth Circuit Court, in a 2-1 decision, became the first appeals court to rule that such a law can take effect.
State lawmakers had questioned the safety and effectiveness of hormone treatments for adolescents, and “could reasonably exercise caution in these circumstances,” wrote Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton of the Sixth Circuit Court. He said there is genuine disagreement about hormone treatments for young people and that “life federal judges should be careful to remove a novel and baffling topic from the medical debate in the ebbs and flows of democracy.”
