Supreme Court to try state law on transgender interventions for minors

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up the case of the United States v. Skrmetti and consider a Tennessee law protecting children from transgender surgery, puberty blockers and hormone therapy. The United States and other entities are challenging Tennessee’s SB1, which prevents doctors in the state from performing and youth in the state from receiving harmful transgender procedures. A district court issued an injunction preventing Tennessee’s law from taking effect. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that decision.

The case could be argued in the fall. About half of the states have passed laws to regulate transgender interventions or protect children from them.

What are both sides saying? The federal government has argued that the law violates the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment because it prevents such procedures depending on the patient’s sex. The other petitioners in the case, three transgender teenagers, their parents, and a Tennessee doctor, argue that the law also violates the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Officials from Tennessee argued that the Sixth Circuit correctly decided that the Constitution does not prevent state officials from acting to protect youth from new and potentially irreversible procedures.