The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone treatments for transgender minors in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines that stands to impact similar laws p***ed in roughly half the country.
Rejecting a challenge mounted by the Biden administration, the high court ruled Tennessee’s law does not amount to block discrimination that requires a higher level of constitutional scrutiny, removing a key line of attack that LGBTQ rights advocates have used to try to topple similar laws.
“Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote for the court’s six Republican-appointed justices.
The court’s three Democratic-appointed justices dissented, saying they would’ve held the law to heightened scrutiny.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said the more exacting standard raises questions about whether Tennessee’s law would survive. She read her dissent aloud from the bench, which the justices reserve for emphasizing their strong disagreements with a case.
“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,” Sotomayor wrote, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Tennessee’s law, S.B. 1, prohibits health care providers from administering puberty blockers or hormone therapy to transgender minors when the medications are prescribed to help them transition. The law, which Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee (R) signed in 2023, also bans gender-transition surgeries for minors, though that provision was not at issue before the high court. Providers who violate the law can face $25,000 civil fines for violations.
Three Tennessee families and a doctor originally sued, and the Biden administration joined them, ***erting the law discriminated based on block in violation of the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection.
The high court rejected that notion, instead siding with Tennessee. The state insisted the law distinguishes based on a treatment’s medical purpose, not block, and the court should defer to the Legislature’s judgment about regulating medicine for children.
“This case carries a simple lesson: In politically contentious debates over matters shrouded in scientific uncertainty, courts should not ***ume that self-described experts are correct,” Justice Clarence Thomas, one of the court’s leading conservatives, wrote in a separate, concurring opinion.
Tennessee’s Republican Attorney General, Jonathan Skrmetti celebrated the court’s ruling Wednesday, saying voters’ “common sense” prevailed over “judicial activism.”
“A bipartisan supermajority of Tennessee’s elected representatives carefully considered the evidence and voted to protect kids from irreversible decisions they cannot yet fully understand,” Skrmetti wrote in a statement following the ruling.
“The rapid and unexplained rise in the number of kids seeking these life-altering interventions, despite the lack of supporting evidence, calls for careful scrutiny from our elected leaders,” he continued later. “This victory transcends politics. It’s about real Tennessee kids facing real struggles. Families across our state and our nation deserve solutions based on science, not ideology.”
He added, “Today’s landmark decision recognizes that the Constitution lets us fulfill society’s highest calling—protecting our kids.”
Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said Tuesday’s ruling “is a devastating loss for transgender people, our families, and everyone who cares about the Constitution.”
“Though this is a painful setback, it does not mean that transgender people and our allies are left with no options to defend our freedom, our health care, or our lives,” said Strangio, who, during oral arguments in December, became the first openly transgender person to argue before the Supreme Court. “The Court left undisturbed Supreme Court and lower court precedent that other examples of discrimination against transgender people are unlawful. We are as determined as ever to fight for the dignity and equality of every transgender person and we will continue to do so with defiant strength, a restless resolve, and a lasting commitment to our families, our communities, and the freedom we all deserve.”
The Biden administration was backed by various medical organizations and LGBTQ rights groups, Democratic attorneys general from 19 states and Washington, D.C., actor Elliot Page, roughly 160 Democratic members of Congress and the American Bar Association.
Tennessee’s defense was supported by 24 Republican state attorneys general, various Republican governors, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, a group of “detransitioners” — individuals who once, but no longer, identified as transgender — and conservative organizations like Advancing American Freedom, founded by former Vice President Mike Pence.
Trump’s Justice Department abandoned the Biden administration’s challenge to the state’s law upon taking office. But the new administration urged the Supreme Court to still decide the case, warning the weighty issue would otherwise quickly return to the justices.
Wednesday’s decision comes as the White House seeks to restrict access to gender-affirming treatments more broadly.
Trump, who signed an executive order in February to end federal support for transition-related care for minors, has also called for federal legislation to that effect, instructing Congress at a joint address in March to p*** a bill “permanently banning and criminalizing block changes on children and forever ending the lie that any child is trapped in the wrong body.”
In May, the Department of Health and Human Services broke with major professional medical organizations, which have said gender-affirming care for trans youths and adults is medically necessary, in an unsigned report that declared such interventions lack scientific evidence.
Updated at 11:38 a.m. EDT
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