Supreme Court upholds Tennessee ban on transgender youth medical care

Jessica_Rose · **Yesterday** at 10:08:46 AM

Supreme Court upholds Tennessee ban on transgender youth medical care

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/supreme-court-upholds-tennessee-ban-on-transgender-youth-medical-care/ar-AA1GXSQu?ocid=hpmsn&cvid=ff028ac4ea1b4e80d48b0decf1e52d73&ei=93

Story by Lawrence Hurley (18 June 2025)

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee law restricting gender transition care for minors, delivering a major blow to transgender rights.

The 6-3 ruling is likely to have a broad impact as 24 other states have already enacted laws similar to the one in Tennessee, which bars gender transition surgery, puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

Those laws now look set to survive similar legal challenges. The ruling does not affect states that do not have such bans, meaning care in those states will still be available.

The court in an opinion authored by Chief Justice John Roberts concluded that the Tennessee law does not constitute a form of sex discrimination that would violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment.

Trans rights activists have also warned that a ruling allowing bans on care for trans minors could pave the way for similar restrictions aimed at adults.

The legal challenge was brought by the administration of former President Joe Biden as well as transgender teens and their families.

The ruling does not definitely resolve all legal issues relating to the state bans as it did not address a separate argument under the 14th Amendment that the laws violate the right of parents to make health care decisions for their children.

Lori Dee · **Yesterday** at 01:41:18 PM

Fox News quoted Justice Sotomayor's dissent, which she atypically read from the bench:

Sotomayor said the 6-3 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, issued along ideological lines, improperly discriminated against minors based on their sex.

Sotomayor ... said the majority "refuses to call a spade a spade" and "obfuscates a sex classification" to allow the Tennessee bill to withstand constitutional tests.

"The Court's willingness to do so here does irrevocable damage to the Equal Protection Clause and invites legislatures to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sex classifications in plain sight," Sotomayor said. "It also authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them."

Sotomayor, whose dissent was joined by Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan, said doctors would offer such medical treatments based on a patient having gender dysphoria. A law banning that practice requires a heightened level of scrutiny that the Supreme Court's majority recklessly did not apply, Sotomayor alleged.

"The majority subjects a law that plainly discriminates on the basis of sex to mere rational-basis review," 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."

News:

Supreme Court upholds Tennessee ban on transgender youth medical care

Jessica_Rose

Lori Dee