It Is Going To Be A Long Year!

A long and drawn out year until next June.

Supreme Court agrees to review Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors

CBS News

By Melissa Quinn

June 24, 2024

The Supreme Court on Monday said it will consider whether a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming health care for transgender minors violates the Constitution, setting the stage for a major decision on transgender rights in its next term.

The justices agreed to review a lower court decision upholding Tennessee's ban, which was appealed by the Justice Department and transgender youth who argue that the laws are outside the bounds of the 14th Amendment. 

The case will be argued in the Supreme Court's next term, which begins in October, with a decision likely by the end of June 2025. The dispute thrusts the Supreme Court into the center of a politically fraught issue that has sparked a wave of legislative action by state lawmakers.

The outcome of the case could have a nationwide impact, since more than 20 states have in recent years enacted laws restricting treatments like puberty-blocking drugs, hormone therapy or surgeries for minors experiencing gender dysphoria.

The Supreme Court has never weighed in directly on the constitutionality of these bans, and the justices intervened in one case involving an Idaho law on an emergency basis. In April, the court agreed to let Idaho officials enforce the state's ban on gender-affirming medical care for nearly all transgender minors statewide and narrowed the scope of a lower court's order that blocked the law from taking effect.

It is going to be a tough year, they will probably hear the case in the fall and issue their decree in June and it will be anyone’s guess on their ruling.

The Tennessee law, known as SB1 and enacted in March 2023, prohibits health care providers from "prescribing, administering or dispensing any puberty blocker or hormone" if the treatment is to "enable a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex" or treat "purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor's sex and asserted identity."

While the law also bars surgical procedures undertaken for the same purpose, that restriction is not at issue in the case. Puberty blockers or hormones can be administered to treat conditions like precocious puberty, disease, a congenital defect or physical injuries.

The history of trans cases before the current Supreme Court has been a mixed bag of rulings. Maybe it is wishful thinking but I think the court is leaning slightly in our favor.

Lambda Legal had this to say in a press release,

The Supreme Court of the United States will hear a pivotal legal challenge against a 2023 Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth. The Court granted review based on a petition by the U.S. government, which intervened in our case, LW. v. Skrmetti, brought by Lambda Legal, American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP, on behalf of Tennessee families and a medical provider. The case will be briefed this fall and will be the Court’s first on the merits regarding equal access to medical care for transgender adolescents.

This harmful and cruel law actively ignores the science and medical consensus supporting this essential, sometimes life-saving care. We will urge the Supreme Court to swiftly and strongly reject this law, which inflicts misery and wreaks havoc on the lives of transgender youth and their families.

We are grateful that transgender youth and their families will now have their day in the highest court, and we will not stop fighting to ensure access to this life-saving, medically necessary care.