The Supreme Court is hearing arguments Wednesday in the second major transgender rights case against a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors.
The justices' decision, which was not expected for months, joins similar laws in 25 other states and other efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including the sports they can participate in and the bathrooms they can use. may affect.
The lawsuit is being filed in a conservative-dominated court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people.
Four years ago, a court ruled in Amy Stevens' favor. She was fired from a funeral home in Michigan after she told the funeral home management that she was a transgender woman. The court held that transgender people, as well as gay and lesbian people, are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace.
Families and health care workers who challenged the Biden administration and the Tennessee law adopted a law four years ago when a majority of liberal and conservative justices found that: asks the justices to apply the same type of analysis. Sex plays an undeniable role in employers' decisions to punish traits and behaviors that transgender people must tolerate. ”
At issue in the Tennessee case is whether the law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people similarly.
Tennessee law bans puberty-blocking drugs and hormone therapy for transgender minors, but not a “total” ban, family lawyers say in Supreme Court brief mentioned in. Chase Strangio, lead attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, is the first person to publicly identify as transgender before a judge.
The government argues that there is no way to determine “whether treatment should be withheld from a particular minor” without considering the minor's gender.
“It is sex discrimination,” Attorney General Elizabeth Preloger wrote in the lead complaint to the court.
The state acknowledges that the same treatments prohibited for transgender minors may be prescribed for other reasons. However, it denies claims that it discriminates on the basis of gender. Rather, the newspaper said, the lawmakers acted to protect minors from the risks of a “life-altering gender reassignment procedure.”
The law “draws a line between minors seeking drugs for sex change and minors seeking drugs for other medical purposes, and boys and girls fall on both sides of that line.” ,” Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Scumetti said in a brief to the state Supreme Court.
The challengers are citing the 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision for support, breaking a 2022 court precedent that ended Tennessee's nationwide protections for abortion and handed the issue back to the states. Relying on the Dobbs decision.
The two sides fought in their filings over the appropriate level of scrutiny that the court should apply. It's more than an academic exercise.
The lowest level is known as rational basis review, and nearly all laws considered this way are ultimately upheld. Indeed, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati that allowed the law to go into effect held that lawmakers acted reasonably within their authority to regulate medical practice.
The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court, which adopted a higher level of review and stricter scrutiny applicable in sex discrimination cases. Under this greater scrutiny, states must identify important objectives and show that the law helps achieve them.
If the justices choose to increase their scrutiny, they could send the case back to the appellate court to apply.
Gender-affirming care for youth is supported by all major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, American Academy of Pediatrics, and American Psychiatric Association.
But Tennessee points out that health authorities in Sweden, Finland, Norway and the United Kingdom have found the treatment “poses significant risks with no proven benefit.”
Preloger responded that none of those countries have adopted bans similar to Tennessee's, and individuals can still receive treatment.
The Williams family of Nashville, Tennessee, is among those challenging the state law. Brian Williams said that as a result of puberty blockers and hormone therapy, his transgender daughter LW is now 16 years old and “making her own music and planning her future with an eye toward college.”
But because of Tennessee's ban, she must travel to another state to receive medical care “that we and her doctors know is appropriate for her.”
