At the time, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti (R) called the 6th Circuit’s ruling “a big win for democracy.”
The 6th Circuit is one of three courts of appeal that has upheld gender transition bans.
Legal experts have long thought the Supreme Court would eventually have to rule on whether these bans violate the Constitution, but the court has great flexibility in deciding when and how to take cases. The Tennessee case had been on and off the Supreme Court’s list of cases for consideration at its private conference for several months before the announcement Monday. The delay suggested that the justices were debating behind closed doors how the high court should handle the cases.
In a separate case in April, the high court allowed Idaho to broadly enforce its ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors while litigation continues before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. The Supreme Court’s brief order, which said the ban could not immediately apply to the two transgender teens who sued the state, did not address the overall constitutionality of prohibiting care. The court’s three liberal justices objected to the timing of the court’s intervention.
Historically, the Supreme Court has taken cases when the issue at hand is of great significance and lower courts have issued contradictory rulings. Though federal district courts have remained divided on whether trans young people should have access to transition care, the appeals courts so far have been in agreement that bans on such care are permissible.
Last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta ruled that an Alabama ban could take effect. In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Illinois temporarily allowed Indiana’s ban to take effect while litigation continues.
The Supreme Court has handed several wins to transgender rights activists in recent years. In 2020, in Bostock v. Clayton County, the court ruled 6-3 that federal employment law protections apply to millions of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers. The court has also declined to review a number of cases where the lower courts had decided in favor of trans rights at school, in prisons and in disability protections. Last year, it also denied West Virginia’s request to allow its law barring transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams at public schools to go into effect while legal challenges to it play out.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Tobi Raji contributed to this report.
