The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee's ban on so-called gender-affirming care for transgender minors, a stunning setback to transgender rights.
The justices' 6-3 decision in a case from Tennessee effectively protects from legal challenges many efforts by President Donald Trump's Republican administration and state governments to roll back what some refer to as protections for transgender people. Another 26 states have laws similar to the one in Tennessee.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a conservative majority that the law does not violate the Constitution's equal protection clause, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same.
“This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field. The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound,” Roberts wrote. “The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best.”
In a dissent for the court's three liberal justices that she summarized aloud in the courtroom, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent."
The decision comes amid a range of other federal and state efforts, some say, to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use. In April, the Trump administration sued Maine for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls sports.
The President also has sought to block federal spending on gender-affirming medical care for those under age 19 — instead promoting talk therapy. In addition, the Supreme Court has allowed him to discharge transgender service members from the military, even as court battles continue. The President also signed another order to define the sexes as only male and female.
Trump's administration has also called for using only therapy, not medical procedures, to treat transgender youths.
The Justices acted a month after the United Kingdom’s top court ruled unanimously that the U.K. Equality Act means trans women can be excluded from some groups and single-sex spaces, such as changing rooms, homeless shelters, swimming areas and medical or counseling services provided only to women.
Five years ago, the Supreme Court ruled 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. That decision is not affected by Wednesday’s ruling.
But the Justices on Wednesday declined to apply the same sort of analysis the court used in 2020 when it found that “sex plays an unmistakable role” in employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate. Roberts joined that opinion written by Justice Neil Gorsuch, who also was part of Wednesday's majority.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett also fully joined the majority but wrote separately to emphasize that laws classifying people based on transgender status should not receive any special review by courts. Barrett, also writing for Justice Clarence Thomas, wrote that “courts must give legislatures flexibility to make policy in this area.”
Chase Strangio, the American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who argued the case for transgender minors and their families, said in a statement that the ruling "is a devastating loss for transgender people, our families, and everyone who cares about the Constitution.”
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti on social media called the ruling a “Landmark VICTORY for Tennessee at SCOTUS in defense of America’s children!”
There are about 300,000 people between the ages of 13 and 17 and 1.3 million adults who identify as transgender in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law. The Williams Institute is a think tank that researches sexual orientation and gender identity demographics to inform laws and public policy decisions.
When the case was argued in December, then-President Joe Biden's administration and families of transgender adolescents had called on the high court to strike down the Tennessee ban as unlawful sex discrimination and protect the constitutional rights of vulnerable Americans.
They argued that the law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
Tennessee’s law bans puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors, but it allows the same drugs to be used for other purposes.
Soon after Trump took office, the Justice Department told the court that its position had changed.
A major issue in the case was the appropriate level of scrutiny courts should apply to such laws.
The lowest level is known as rational basis review, and almost every law looked at that way is ultimately upheld. Indeed, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati that allowed the Tennessee law to be enforced held that lawmakers acted rationally to regulate medical procedures, well within their authority.
The appeals court reversed a trial court that employed a higher level of review, heightened scrutiny, which applies in cases of sex discrimination. Under this more searching examination, the state must identify an important objective and show that the law helps accomplish it.
Roberts' 24-page majority opinion was devoted almost entirely to explaining why the Tennessee law, known as SB1, should be evaluated under the lower standard of review. The law's restrictions on treating minors for gender dysphoria turn on age and medical use, not sex, Roberts wrote.
Doctors may prescribe puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors of any sex to treat some disorders, but not those relating to transgender status, he wrote.
But in her courtroom statement, Sotomayor asserted that similar arguments were made to defend the Virginia law prohibiting interracial marriage that the Supreme Court struck down in 1967.
“A ban on interracial marriage could be described in the same way as the majority described SB1,” she said.
Roberts rejected the comparison in his opinion.
FILE - The Supreme Court is seen on Capitol Hill in Washington, Dec. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
