Arguments for the landmark case will be the first time that the conservative-majority court will weigh in on the legality of gender-affirming care.
The lawsuit’s outcome could have far-reaching consequences, potentially impacting laws passed in more than two dozen Republican-led states banning medications used for gender-affirming care like puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender kids and teens.
Legal challenges to those state bans have been met with mixed reactions, with federal appeals courts divided on whether they are constitutional.
Tennessee’s Governor Bill Lee (R) signed a bill banning gender-affirming medical care for minors into law in 2023. A district court judge blocked state officials from enforcing the ban, but a court of appeals later overturned the challenge, allowing the ban to take effect.
The law threatens gender-affirming medical care providers with professional disciplinary action, private lawsuits and fines of up to $25,000.
More than 20 Republican-led states have filed briefs asking the justices to uphold Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, as have 135 athletes, coaches and parents who argue that overturning the law will undermine efforts to bar trans women from women’s sports and restrooms.
On the other side, 64 transgender adults, including actors Elliot Page and Nicole Maines and Rep.-elect Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly transgender person elected to Congress, argued in September that access to gender-affirming health care had proved vital to their overall health, well-being and “even their survival.”
Democratic attorneys general in 19 states and Washington, D.C., said Tennessee’s ban “departs from traditional norms of state medical regulation.”
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the case comes at the request of the Biden administration, which intervened in the lawsuit and supports the argument that Tennessee’s ban violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
Read more here from The Hill’s Brooke Migdon.
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