Editor's note: This story was updated to include a statement from Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti.
The United States Supreme Court will review Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and irreversible sex reassignment surgeries for minors.
The case, United States vs. Skrmetti, will be argued in the next term, which starts in October.
Tennessee enacted a law in 2023 to protect children from experimental, so-called “gender-affirming care,” which includes surgeries, puberty blockers and hormone therapies. The legislation allows lawsuits against health care providers who violate these restrictions. In addition, providers who break the law could lose their licenses to practice.
Reportedly, two “transgender” teenagers challenged the law (via ScotusBlog):
The challengers in the Tennessee case are a 16-year-old transgender girl, who has received puberty blockers and estrogen therapy, a 13-year-old transgender boy who has received puberty blockers, and a 16-year-old transgender boy who has received puberty blockers and testosterone therapy. The youths, along with their parents and a doctor who treats transgender patients, filed a lawsuit against Tennessee officials in federal court, seeking to bar the state from enforcing the ban on puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and gender-transition surgeries.
The Biden administration joined the case under a federal law that allows the government to intervene in private cases alleging violations of the right to equal protection under the law “if the Attorney General certifies that the case is of general public importance.”
Last year, Townhall reported how the law was being challenged in lower courts. The law was instigated after The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh revealed that Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) was providing “gender-affirming” services to children because it’s a “big money maker,” one of the clinic’s physicians said in a resurfaced video, which Townhall covered.
Vanderbilt opened its trans clinic in 2018. During a lecture the same year, Dr. Shayne Taylor explained how she convinced Nashville to get into the gender transition game. She emphasized that it's a "big money maker," especially because the surgeries require a lot of "follow ups" pic.twitter.com/zedM7HBCBe
— Matt Walsh (@MattWalshBlog) September 20, 2022
The federal appeals court in Cincinnati allowed the Tennessee law, as well as a law in Kentucky, to take effect. Twenty-one other states have laws on the books protecting children from these harmful services.
"We fought hard to defend Tennessee's law protecting kids from irreversible gender treatments and secured a thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion from the Sixth Circuit. I look forward to finishing the fight in the United States Supreme Court. This case will bring much-needed clarity to whether the Constitution contains special protections for gender identity," Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti said in a statement.