Supreme Court Set to Hear Tennessee Transgender Case
The US Supreme Court has agreed to review a lawsuit challenging a Tennessee law banning hormone therapy and puberty blockers for children under age 18.?
This marks the first time the current nine Supreme Court justices will have the opportunity to weigh in on a highly contentious political issue in the US. According to the Human Rights Campaign, 25 US states have enacted similar laws, some of which are currently blocked by lawsuits.
Three transgender teenagers in Tennessee, along with their parents and a physician providing transgender care, claim that the state's 2023 ban violates the US Constitution's guarantee of equal protection by discriminating based on sex.
The Biden administration, along with several major US medical groups, supports their case. They argue that the law prevents transgender individuals from accessing medications and therapies available to other adolescents with medical needs and that it infringes upon parents' rights to secure necessary care for their children.
US Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the Biden administration’s top Supreme Court advocate, told the justices in a brief filed last year that the Tennessee law and those like it “inflict profound harm on transgender adolescents and their families” by denying “appropriate and necessary” treatment for a serious medical condition.
She argued that there is uncertainty around the legality of transgender care bans and that the Supreme Court should step in to settle the dispute.
Lawyers for the state of Tennessee have countered that the transgender law is a reflection of the will of the state’s elected lawmakers and addresses a pressing public concern.
“Tennessee, like many other states, acted to ensure that minors do not receive these treatments until they can fully understand the lifelong consequences or until the science is developed to the point that Tennessee might take a different view of their efficacy,” the state wrote in a brief filed with the Supreme Court.
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court permitted an Idaho ban on transgender care to take effect without commenting on the law's constitutionality.
In 2020, a six-justice majority ruled that federal law protects transgender employees from discrimination. One of the justices in that majority, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, has since been replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, a more conservative appointee of Donald Trump.
The Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in the case, United States v. Skrmetti, this autumn, with a decision expected sometime next year.
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