Deadline: Legal Blog-Supreme Court says Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors is constitutional

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The court considered whether the ban violates the Constitution’s equal protection clause. The answer has nationwide implications.

Supreme Court says Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors is constitutional - MSNBC apple.news/A4yOnadEwRNW...

— Ms. Kevin (@kkalmes31.bsky.social) 2025-06-18T15:21:19.288Z

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/supreme-court-gender-affirming-care-ruling-minors-skrmetti-tennessee-rcna187760

The Supreme Court has upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, in an opinion by Chief Justice John Roberts over dissent from the court’s Democratic appointees.

The Republican-appointed majority said Wednesday that the state law isn’t subject to heightened scrutiny under the Constitution’s equal protection clause. Reasoning that the law doesn’t discriminate based on sex, Roberts wrote that it “prohibits healthcare providers from administering puberty blockers and hormones to minors for certain medical uses, regardless of a minor’s sex.”

Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent for the three Democratic appointees that the law plainly discriminated on the basis of sex, and so it deserved greater scrutiny from the court. “By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims,” she wrote.

The appeal presented national implications for other states with similar laws and for transgender rights more broadly. According to KFF, which tracks health policy, 27 states have laws or policies limiting youth access to gender-affirming care.

The justices took the case at the urging of the federal government during the Biden administration. Its petition noted that states across the country have laws that bar transgender adolescents from receiving certain treatments but don’t restrict those same treatments for any other purpose. Those laws “classify based on sex and transgender status,” the petition argued.

Defending the law, the state said it’s “not unconstitutional discrimination to say that drugs can be prescribed for one reason but not another.” The state further argued that its law doesn’t classify people based on sex but rather creates two groups: “minors seeking drugs for gender transition and minors seeking drugs for other medical purposes.”

After Donald Trump won the 2024 presidential election, the federal government told the court in February that its Biden-era stance “no longer represent the United States’ position.” Still, the government didn’t ask the justices to dismiss the appeal, citing several factors including that the court’s resolution of the case would affect many pending cases in the lower courts.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. I think they're saying states no longer have to consider The Bill of Rights. /nt

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. Deadline: Legal Blog-Justice Amy Coney Barrett's stance would further weaken transgender rights

The Trump appointee wrote a concurrence in the Skrmetti case joined only by Thomas. Alito seems to agree with them, too.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s stance would further weaken #transgender rights.

The Trump appointee wrote a concurrence in the #Skrmetti case joined only by #Thomas. #Alito seems to agree with them, too.

— [The Great War & Modern Memory] (@ps9714.bsky.social) 2025-06-18T19:53:43.041Z

https://www.msnbc.com/deadline-white-house/deadline-legal-blog/transgender-rights-skrmetti-decision-barrett-rcna213740

When the Supreme Court upheld a ban on gender-affirming care for minors Wednesday, it didn’t resolve a broader question of whether transgender people are entitled to certain legal protections that would help them press constitutional challenges. But Justice Amy Coney Barrett went out of her way to explain why she thinks transgender people don’t deserve such protection.

Her explanation came in a concurring opinion to Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority ruling in United States v. Skrmetti. Justices sometimes write concurrences to add their own thoughts, even if those thoughts don’t create binding legal opinions on their own. They can lay the groundwork for future majority rulings and influence lower courts in the meantime. And though the Trump appointee’s concurrence was only joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, if her reasoning is adopted by a majority of the court in the future, it could further weaken transgender rights.

Barrett noted that, while laws are presumed constitutional and are generally upheld so long as they bear a rational relation to a legitimate goal, there are exceptions to the general rule, such as for classifications based on race and sex. When those so-called suspect classes are at issue, the government faces a greater burden to show why its actions are constitutional. In the Skrmetti case, the majority said Tennessee didn’t have to shoulder that greater burden because, the majority reasoned, the state law didn’t classify people based on sex or transgender status.

Barrett listed multiple reasons why she thinks transgender people don’t deserve this suspect class status. Among other things, she suggested that transgender people have not sufficiently faced a history of legal discrimination like people have faced based on race or sex......

So, while the question of what general legal protections transgender people have wasn’t the main issue in the Skrmetti case, at least three justices appear prepared to rule against them on that broader question, which could make it even more challenging for them to press legal claims in all sorts of cases going forward.

I know that some MAGA types are mad at Barrett for not rubberstamping rulings for trump. This ruling shows why the Federalist Society picked this very conservative asshole to be on the SCOTUS. She may not rubberstamp rulings for trump but she is still an asshole