Bad News – We Lost A Biggie!

A court case that we were celebrating last month just took a turn for the worst.

Appeals court temporarily reinstates Tennessee ban on transgender youth care

Decision marks the first time a federal court has allowed a ban on gender-affirming care for minors to take effect

Tennessee Lookout

By: Anita Wadhwani

July 8, 2023

A federal appeals court has temporarily reinstated Tennessee’s law barring gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, allowing a recently enacted ban on treatments that include puberty blockers and surgery to take immediate effect.

In a divided opinion, the three-judge panel of the Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals voted 2-1 to reverse a Nashville federal judge’s order that prevented the law from taking effect July 1. The majority decision signaled the judges are unconvinced Tennessee’s ban is unconstitutional.

Citing debates over transgender care for minors occurring in legislatures across the country, the judges suggested such decisions are best left to individual states, a position that echoes last year’s U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Dobbs, eliminating a constitutional right to abortion — a decision repeatedly cited in the panel’s 15-page opinion.

There is a hodgepodge of conflicting rulings with most of them siding with us!

In a two-page dissent, Judge Helene White wrote that Tennessee’s law likely discriminates on the basis of sex, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, noting the same medical procedures and drugs being denied transgender youth may be used for other medical care.

[…]

But White sided with her colleagues in one respect: concluding the Nashville federal judge abused his discretion in ordering a statewide halt of the law when plaintiffs in the non-class action suit consisted of just nine people: three sets of parents, their minor transgender children and a doctor who provides gender-affirming care.

That’s nuts! There is no more than a couple of handful trans children in the state! How many does she want? A hundred? Two hundred? It only took one “Christian” to overturn all the non-discrimination laws in the country!

The majority’s decision marks the first time a federal court has allowed a ban on gender-affirming care to take effect. Federal courts have blocked similar bans in Arkansas, Florida, Indiana and Kentucky.  On Saturday, advocacy groups that have fought in court in against Tennessee’s ban called it “beyond disappointing and a heartbreaking development for thousands of transgender youth, their doctors, and their families.”

Sixth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals

Judge White: Biden

Judge Sutton: Bush

Judge Thapar: Trump

Ballotpedia wrote,

Thapar was included on President Donald Trump’s (R) June 2018 list of 25 potential Supreme Court nominees to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy on the court. Trump first released such a list during his 2016 presidential campaign and stated, “This list is definitive and I will choose only from it in picking future Justices of the United States Supreme Court.”

No surprise that he ruled the way he did.

Well I guess we go to the Supreme Court where it will be a crap-shoot!