Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt.
Gender-affirming care for minors is banned in Tennessee after a weekend ruling from the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court granted Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s request to lift a partial block of the law put in place by Nashville federal Judge Eli Richardson late last month. Richardson had temporarily blocked part of the ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapies but allowed the ban on surgical procedures to go into effect.
The ACLU of Tennessee, a local family and others filed a lawsuit in April and the U.S. Department of Justice also stepped in to attempt to block the law.
The ban on gender-affirming care for youth in Tennessee was originally set to take effect on July 1 and reflects a promise from legislators during an October anti-trans rally led by right-wing media figure Matt Walsh and The Daily Wire. Filed this legislative session as SB1/HB1, it 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.
“The case is far from over, but this is a big win,” Skrmetti said in a statement Saturday. “The court of appeals lifted the injunction, meaning the law can be fully enforced and recognized that Tennessee is likely to win a constitutional argument and case.”
Skrmetti is also investigating VUMC’s adult transgender clinic, with the hospital’s decision to turn over health records to the state alarming some patients.
The law allows for a nine-month unwinding period for transgender youth to end gender-affirming treatment, but the Pediatric Transgender Clinic at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University Medical Center ceased operations in June. After being the target of far-right efforts to end the care, the clinic stated that it only performed about five surgeries per year on minors, all over the age of 16, and none of them were genital surgeries. It also paused surgeries for minors in November.
Tennessee subverts national trends in banning gender-affirming care for minors entirely. In June, a similar ban was found unconstitutional in Arkansas. 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.
“This ruling is beyond disappointing and a heartbreaking development for thousands of transgender youth, their doctors and their families,” the coalition of groups challenging the law, including the ACLU and Lambda Legal, says in a statement. “As we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all the transgender youth of Tennessee to know this fight is far from over and we will continue to challenge this law until it is permanently defeated and Tennessee is made a safer place to raise every family.”
