Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
Washington – The Supreme Court confirmed on Wednesday a law of Tennessee restricting gender transitional care for minors, giving a blow to transgender rights.
Decision 6-3 is likely to have a broad impact as 24 others states have already promulgated laws similar to that of Tennessee, which prohibits gender transition surgery, puberty blockers and hormone therapy.
The court was divided on ideological lines, the six conservatives of the majority and the three liberals dissent.
These laws now seem ready to survive similar legal challenges. The decision does not affect states that do not have such prohibitions, which means that care in these states will always be available.
The Court in an opinion written by chief judge John Roberts concluded that the law of Tennessee did not constitute a form of sexual discrimination which would violate the 14th amendment of the Constitution.
“This case leads to the weight of fierce scientific and political debates on the security, efficiency and convenience of medical treatments in an evolving field,” wrote Roberts. “The voices of these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are deep.”
“The equal protection clause does not solve these disagreements,” he added.
Trans rights activists have also warned that a decision allowing prohibitions on care for trans minors could open the way for similar restrictions for adults.
The judicial dispute was brought by the administration of former president Joe Biden, as well as transgender adolescents and their families.
The decision does not certainly solve all legal issues relating to the prohibitions of the State because it did not address a separate argument under the 14th amendment that laws violate the law of parents to make health care decisions for their children.
After taking office in January, President Donald Trump began to relax the policies of Biden who sought to strengthen the rights of transgender. Among other things, he signed a executive decree Seeking to restrict the affirmative care for adolescents at the national level. A judge Blocked.
Trump also imposed New restrictions On transgender people serving in the army.
Promulgated in 2023, the law of Tennessee is part of a wave of similar measures taken by states imposing restrictions on gender transition treatments. By defending its ban, state lawyers have stressed similar measures taken in other countries, including in Europe.
The attorney general of Tennessee, Jonathan Skrmetti, underlined in court the evolutionary debate on the best way to treat minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the clinical term granted to distress that people can experience when their gender identity is in conflict with the sexes attributed to them.
The main medical organizations say that treatments affirming sex is an effective way to treat gender dysphoria.
The challenges have argued that the law is a form of sexual discrimination which violates the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment because the treatments in question in the case – puberty blockers and hormone therapy – can be used in other situations.
The case marks the most important decision on the rights of transgender people since the court in 2020, to the surprise of many, judge that federal employment protections extend to gender identity as well as sexual orientation.
The dispute reached the Supreme Court after the 6th Circuit Court of American Appeals based in Cincinnati in 2023 rejected the disputes of the Tennessee law and a measure similar to Kentucky.
A judge of the district court had blocked parties of the law, while concluding that the complainants had no legal position to challenge the prohibition of surgery. This provision of the law was not in question before the Supreme Court.
