The Supreme Court will hear the Biden administration’s challenge to a Tennessee law banning gender-transition procedures for minors, inserting itself for the first time into the heated public debate surrounding the government’s role in protecting children from experimental procedures that come with lifelong medical consequences.
The Supreme Court announced on Monday it will hear United States v. Skrmetti, a case brought by multiple transgender plaintiffs and their families against a Tennessee law prohibiting minors from receiving puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and invasive transgender surgical procedures. The Biden administration joined the case in support for the plaintiffs.
Oral arguments will take place in the fall and the justices will rule on the case around this time next year. More than two-dozen Republican states have enacted bans on transgender procedures for minors and the Supreme Court’s decision could effect whether those laws remain in place.
“We fought hard to defend Tennessee’s law protecting kids from irreversible gender treatments and secured a thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion from the Sixth Circuit. I look forward to finishing the fight in the United States Supreme Court. This case will bring much-needed clarity to whether the Constitution contains special protections for gender identity,” Skrmetti said in a statement.
The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals last fall upheld the Tennessee ban and a similar law passed in Kentucky over the veto of Democratic governor Andy Beshear. The panel ruled that Tennessee and Kentucky’s laws banning transgender procedures did not violate laws preventing discrimination on the basis of sex.
Most mainstream medical association strongly support gender-transition procedures despite the well-documented risks surrounding the procedures, following the lead of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). Internal documents released earlier this year showed WPATH staffers recognize that child gender-transition procedures are experimental and that children opting for them are unaware of the lifelong medical ramifications of the treatments.
Many European nations have significantly scaled back the ability of minors to receive transgender procedures after reviewing the scientific literature. The U.K.’s National Health Service commissioned an independent review of the evidence that was submitted in April. Dr. Hilary Cass noted the “remarkably weak” evidence in support of gender-transition procedures in her report, known as the “Cass Review.” The World Health Organization noted in January the evidence to support minors receiving gender-transition treatment is lacking.
A growing number of individuals who underwent transition procedures only to renounce their transgender identity are coming forward to warn distressed children about rushing into life-altering medical decisions. The detransitioners have begun speaking out to raise awareness of their experiences and some have filed lawsuits against the medical practitioners they accuse of wrongfully persuading them to undergo hormone therapies and surgeries that, in many cases, left them infertile and suffering from sexual disfunction.
Last year, gender-clinic whistleblower Jamie Reed, a progressive women who identifies as Queer, sounded the alarm about rushed gender transitions for severely distressed teenage patients at Washington University’s transgender treatment facility in St. Louis, Missouri.
Reed’s warning pushed Missouri to pass legislation banning gender-transition procedures for minors and had a noticeable impact on public debate surrounding the contentious issue. A New York Times investigation later vindicated Reed’s telling of events.