The Supreme Court confirms the prohibition of Tennessee on the held care for young trans for young people

Cnn
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On Wednesday, the Supreme Court confirmed the prohibition of Tennessee on affirmative sex care for trans minors in a blockbuster decision which will strengthen the efforts of conservative state legislators to adopt and preserve other division laws targeting transgender Americans.

The 6-3 decision by a conservative majority is a blow for the Transgender community and its defenders at a critical time. Since 2020, the states led by the Republicans across the country have adopted a wave of laws regulating the lives of the American trans, with a particular accent on minors. And President Donald Trump, who ran in partly re -election at the end of “transgender madness”, took several measures intended to reduce the gains made by this community.

About half of the country’s states have prohibitions similar to those of Tennessee. The federal courts have disagreed on the constitutionality of these laws, and the Tennessee affair, filed by the Biden administration, was the first to reach the High Court.

The majority opinion of the Court was written by chief judge John Roberts and joined by the other five members of the Conservative wing. The three liberals dissident.

“This case leads to the weight of ferocious scientific and political debates on the security, efficiency and convenience of medical treatments in an evolving field,” Roberts wrote. “The voices of these debates raise sincere concerns; The implications for all are deep. The equal protection clause does not solve these disagreements. ”

In the future, under the court’s decision, judges examining prohibitions like those of Tennessee – and, potentially, other restrictive laws – will do so under the lowest level of judicial control, which means that these other laws are more likely to be confirmed by the courts.

The court “abandons transgender children and their families with political whims,” ​​wrote Judge Sonia Sotomayor, member of the Liberal Court wing, taking the rare stage of reading the bench. “In sadness, I dissipate myself.”

The liberal wing argued that the conservative majority of the Court had linked to the nodes by trying to avoid the previous previous ones who declared that the laws affecting transgender Americans necessarily discriminated against the base of sex.

“The majority refuses to call a cat a cat,” wrote Sotomayor. “Instead, it obscures a sexual classification which is clear following this law, everything to avoid the simple possibility that a different court can eliminate SB1, or categorical health prohibitions like it.”

Sotomayor wrote that the opinion of the Court inflicts “irrevocable damage to the equal protection clause and invites the legislatures to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sexual classifications in sight.”

The policy of the question has moved while the case was underway on the file of the Supreme Court. Since his return to power in January, Trump has attempted to withdraw the Americans Transgender from the military – the judges in early May have enabled this policy to take effect – and the president signed an executive decree prohibiting non -binary markers on American passports. Certain polls have suggested softening support for transgender gains among democrats, especially on the issue of transgender girls playing in female sports teams.

TENNESSE SB 1 prohibits hormone therapy and puberty blockers for transgender minors in the state and imposes civil sanctions on doctors who violate prohibitions. He also prohibits surgeries affirming the sexes, although this provision was not involved in the case. The law entered into force in 2023.

More specifically, the law prohibits providers from administering such care if the goal is to allow “a minor to identify or live as an alleged identity incompatible with the sex of the minor” or to deal with “the alleged discomfort or the distress of a discrepancy between the sex and the affirmed identity of the minor”.

SB 1 was initially challenged by three TRANS minors from Tennessee, their parents and a state doctor whose practice included the treatment of minors for gender dysphoria. The Biden administration then joined this trial, and the lower federal courts reached different conclusions as to the constitutionality of the law.

The case landed in the weeks court after Trump was re -elected following an electoral cycle in which he amplified a commitment to further restrict civil rights for trans people during the closing days of his campaign. Shortly after taking office, the Ministry of Justice of Trump told the High Court that he no longer supported the challenge to the law of Tennessee, reversing the post of the Biden Ministry of Justice in the case.

A multitude of other states led by the GOP have undergone similar health care prohibitions in recent years. Today, more than 110,000 adolescents live in states where restrictions on puberty blockers and hormone therapy exist, according to the Williams Institute of the UCLA School of Law.

A court of appeal divided in Cincinnati in 2023 allowed the prohibition to take effect.

One of the key questions in the high court was whether the law discriminated against sex – a conclusion that would trigger a more difficult examination of the courts under the 14th amendment. Biden administration noted that a child born as a girl is entitled to puberty blockers and estrogen under state law for certain medical conditions, but a child born as a boy would not be entitled to these treatments to live as a woman.

“It is sex discrimination,” said Biden administration at the Supreme Court.

The argument was partly based on a successful decision in 2020 called Bostock c. Clayton County, who found that federal law prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sex “necessarily” also covers gay and transgender workers. This decision 6-3 divided the conservatives into the court.

TENNESSEE has its law based on age, not on sex, and prohibits the use of drugs for the specific purpose of facilitating a gender transition. The state argued that it had an imperative interest in “encouraging minors to assess their gender” and argued that it is authorized to make decisions regulating medical treatment. It was an argument that seemed to find a receptive audience when the case was argued in December.

This story has been updated with additional details.