Transgender Youth Care Ban Appealed to U.S. Supreme Court

Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors is on its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

Local transgender youth and their families, including one Nashville family, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP have appealed the case, L.W. v. Skrmetti, to the high court, requesting that the court block the law banning gender-affirming care for those under 18 in Tennessee. A number of states have sought to institute such bans, and Tennessee advocates are the first to take their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

After months of legal battles, the gender-affirming ban is currently in effect. It prohibits medical providers from treating transgender youth and requires minors currently receiving such care to end it by March 31. 

The state’s ban on gender-affirming care was passed in February as HB1/SB1, the first bill filed in the legislative session. Banning gender-affirming care for minors was a priority for Republican leaders, who promised such legislation at an anti-trans rally led by conservative media figure Matt Walsh in October 2022. Vanderbilt University Medical Center shut down its pediatric transgender clinic preemptively in June. 

Challenges to the ban began in April, when the ACLU of Tennessee, a local family and others filed a lawsuit and the U.S. Department of Justice also stepped in to attempt to block the law.

In June, Nashville federal Judge Eli Richardson temporarily blocked part of the ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapies but allowed the ban on surgical procedures to go into effect. In July, the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals lifted the partial block at the request of Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, allowing the ban to go into effect. In September, the appeals court affirmed the earlier decision. 

Alabama faces a similar situation to that of Tennessee, as the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in August that a ban on gender-affirming care for minors should take effect. In Arkansas, a federal district court judge struck down the state’s ban.

“I’m fighting this law because I know how important this care is for tens of thousands of transgender youth like me,” says 15-year-old L.W., a transgender patient who is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. “It scares me to think about losing the medication that I need. And if this law continues, my family may have to leave Tennessee — the place I have lived and loved my entire life. And with so many new laws like Tennessee’s, it is hard to imagine where we can even go. I want the Justices to know transgender people are not going away and that we deserve the same rights as everyone else.”

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.

This story was first published via our sister publication, the Nashville Post.