In a crucial decision, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) on Wednesday upheld a Tennessee state law banning gender-transition treatments and surgical ‘gender reassignment’ procedures for trans-identifying minors.
The question at issue in United States v. Skrmetti was whether Tennessee’s law, Senate Bill 1, constituted sex-based discrimination, violating the equal protection and due process clauses of the 14th Amendment by restricting gender-transition treatments for minors. The SCOTUS, in a 6-3 decision along ideological lines, ruled that it did not constitute sex discrimination and that the law distinguishes treatments based on their medical purpose, not sex.
Chief Justice Roberts, writing for the majority, stated the following: “Our role is not to judge the wisdom, fairness or logic of the law before us, but only to ensure that it does not violate the equal protection guarantee of the Fourteenth Amendment. Having concluded it does not, we leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.” In a dissenting opinion, Justice Sotomayor argued that the majority “invites legislatures to engage in discrimination by hiding blatant sex classifications in plain sight.”
Tennessee’s defense was supported by 24 Republican state attorneys general, Republican governors, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, legal and policy groups such as Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), and “detransitioners”, people who regret the harm caused to them by undergoing harmful procedures in an attempt to change their God-given sex.
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