Florida... use the “Skrmetti” decision to take away trans healthcare from adults

[Jessica_Rose]

Florida is already trying to use the "Skrmetti" decision to take away trans healthcare from adults

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/florida-is-already-trying-to-use-the-skrmetti-decision-to-take-away-trans-healthcare-from-adults/ar-AA1IFhGd?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=5ab056c04fff40e680373dca8e631354&ei=137

Story by John Russell (15 July 2025)

Nearly a month after the Supreme Court's devastating anti-trans ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti, lawyers for Florida are citing the decision in their efforts to get the state's ban on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care reinstated.

Writing for the court's conservative majority in Skrmetti, Chief Justice John Roberts said that a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for transgender minors does not discriminate on the basis of sex or on the basis of transgender status in violation of the Equal Protection Clause because the law only makes distinctions based on a diagnosis of gender dysphoria.

In their July 11 filing, lawyers for Florida argued that because the state's ban on Medicaid coverage for gender-affirming care treatments is based on medical diagnoses, it also does not violate the Equal Protection Clause, and thus Hinkle's decision should be struck down and the ban reinstated.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs in the case, meanwhile, argued that the Skrmetti decision was "fairly limited in its scope and breadth," according to CBS News. The Supreme Court's decision, they wrote in their brief, "hinges on the Court's finding that Tennessee's law classified based on age and medical condition." Florida's ban, meanwhile, "irrationally" targets transgender Medicaid beneficiaries of all ages.

Florida's Medicaid coverage exclusions, they wrote, "discriminate based on transgender status and therefore sex in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment."