The U.S. Supreme Court has granted a petition for divided argument in U.S. v. Skrmetti, the federal challenge to Tennessee’s law prohibiting doctors from prescribing treatments for gender dysphoria to transgender youth.
The court previously agreed in June to take up the case, as well as its companion case, L.W. v. Skrmetti, during the 2024-2025 court session.
The outcome of the case will likely determine the fate of similar laws in 23 other states, where Republican lawmakers have sought to criminalize the provision of gender-affirming care, like puberty blockers or hormones, to transgender youth to help them transition and assuage their feelings of gender dysphoria.
Two other states — Arizona and New Hampshire — have only banned surgical interventions on minors. Oral arguments in the case have been set for December 4, 2024.
A federal judge initially blocked the law from taking effect, but Tennessee appealed the ruling and asked that it be reversed. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently lifted that injunction, thereby allowing the law to take effect. A few months later, the 6th Circuit rejected a separate request seeking to block enforcement of the law.
The Justice Department intervened, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 6th Circuit’s rationale for the decision, in hopes of reversing it.
The plaintiffs in the original L.W. v. Skrmetti lawsuit challenging the ban — three families with transgender children and a Memphis-based doctor — are being represented by a coalition of legal organizations and firms, including Lambda Legal, the AmericanCivilLibertiesUnion, the ACLU of Tennessee, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs recently petitioned the court for divided argument, enabling them to split time with the U.S. Department of Justice in arguing for the ban to be overturned. On October 21, the court granted that request.
As a result, Chase Strangio, the co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, will now appear before the high court to argue for overturning the Tennessee ban — and others like it — on behalf of his clients, with those arguments becoming part of the case’s official record.
Strangio’s appearance will make him the first out transgender person to argue a case before the prestigious legal body.
Strangio is the leading U.S. legal expert on transgender rights, ACLU Legal Director Cecillia Wang told Reuters.
“He brings to the lectern not only brilliant constitutional lawyering, but also the tenacity and heart of a civil rights champion,” Wang said.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has launched an investigation into Seattle Children's Hospital over its alleged provision of gender-affirming care to transgender minors, a practice the Trump administration has aggressively sought to end.
In a post on X, the HHS official account said the hospital had been referred to the Office of the Inspector General for "failure to meet professional recognized standards of health care" under a declaration issued on December 18 by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., according to The Hill.
The U.S. House of Representatives voted largely along party lines to advance a bill that would imprison doctors for providing gender-affirming care to transgender minors and punish parents who consent to their child’s treatment.
The bill, introduced by U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), would impose prison sentences of up to 10 years on medical providers who recommend or prescribe puberty blockers, hormone therapy, or surgery to transgender patients under 18. It would also criminalize parents who consent to their child’s treatment or transport them across state lines to obtain such care.
Federal Judge Victoria Calvert has permanently blocked a portion of Georgia’s law banning prisoners from receiving gender-affirming care, ruling on Dec. 3 that the state’s blanket ban on hormone therapy violates the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.
Signed by Gov. Brian Kemp in May and implemented in July, the law bars prisoners from receiving hormone therapy or other treatment for gender dysphoria -- even when a doctor deems it medically necessary. It prohibits the state from funding such care and blocks transgender inmates from paying for it themselves. Non-transgender prisoners, however, may still receive hormone therapy and other gender-affirming treatments so long as the care is not related to gender transition.
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