State Sen. Jack Johnson speaks at a rally against transgender health care, Oct. 21, 2022
The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, along with national advocacy groups and others, filed suit in Nashville federal court Thursday seeking to block a new ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
The Tennessee law, introduced as House Bill 1 and Senate Bill 1 this legislative session, puts doctors at risk of losing their license for providing gender-affirming care to minors. It also provides a path for parents to sue if the care happened without their consent and for people who received gender-affirming care as minors to sue their medical providers as adults. Even if the family involved is satisfied with their child’s care, the state attorney general can sue a provider.
The local ACLU chapter teamed with its national chapter as well as New York City-based advocacy law group Lambda Legal and Washington, D.C.-based firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in the effort on behalf of Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville and their 15-year-old transgender daughter, two other families filing anonymously and Dr. Susan Lacy of Memphis.
In February, the Tennessee General Assembly passed HB1/SB1, and Gov. Bill Lee signed it into law on March 3. The legislation was set to take effect July 1 and would require trans youth currently receiving gender-affirming care to end that care within nine months.
“The brave families filing this lawsuit are taking a stand for their transgender children despite being targeted by hateful politicians and media personalities,” says Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, ACLU-TN staff attorney. “For them, it’s not about politics — it’s about the freedom to access vital, life-saving health care for their families. We are proud to be by their side and want all trans youth in Tennessee to know that we see them and will always defend their rights.”
Senate Majority Leader and bill sponsor Sen. Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) was among the legislators who stood in front of a crowd at an anti-trans rally in October and pledged to file what would become the new law. Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s Pediatric Transgender Clinic released a statement that month explaining that an average of five patients per year, all 16 or older, received gender-affirming surgeries, and none received genital surgeries.
Tennessee is one of 11 states that has proposed a law limiting gender-affirming care for trans youth — but two states — Alabama and Arkansas, are ahead of Tennessee in the process. In 2021, Arkansas passed a similar law, and the ACLU sued. The case is ongoing. In 2022, Alabama was the first to make providing gender-affirming medical treatment a felony in the state. The U.S. Department of Justice promptly challenged the law, and eventually a judge ruled to allow hormones and puberty blockers but not surgeries.
“It was incredibly painful watching my child struggle before we were able to get her the life-saving health care she needed,” plaintiff Samantha Williams said in a release. “We have a confident, happy daughter now, who is free to be herself and she is thriving. I am so afraid of what this law will mean for her. We don’t want to leave Tennessee, but this legislation would force us to either routinely leave our state to get our daughter the medical care she desperately needs or to uproot our entire lives and leave Tennessee altogether. No family should have to make this kind of choice.”
Representatives for Lee and Johnson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This article first ran via our sister publication, the Nashville Post.
