Supreme Court will hear challenge to gender-affirming care bans for trans youth

The Supreme Court will hear a major case that could determine whether states can block transgender youth from receiving gender-affirming healthcare.

Nearly half of US states have restricted or banned young trans people from receiving affirming care treatments, triggering courtroom battles over trans rights across the country.

The Supreme Court’s announcement that it will hear an appeal from Tennessee marks the first time that it will hear oral arguments in a case stemming from right-wing-driven threats to trans healthcare, and it could open the door for otherconstitutional arguments over LGBT+ discrimination.

Oral arguments are expected in the court’s next term, which begins in October and ends in June 2025.

Last year, a federal appeals court upheld Tennessee law that blocks doctors from prescribing affirming care like puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgeries to trans youth. That ruling was reversed by a panel of appeals court judges, whose ruling is now being challenged at the Supreme Court.

The ACLU and LGBT+ advocacy groups had initially sued to block Tennessee’s law on behalf of a group of trans teens and their families who argue that the state ban violates their 14th Amendment right to equal protections under the law.

They also argue that the law violates the right of parents to make healthcare decisions for their children.

President Joe Biden’s administration also joined the challenge.

In a brief to the Supreme Court urging the justices to take up the case, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar warned that the law “is part of a wave of similar bans preventing transgender adolescents from obtaining medical care that they, their parents, and their doctors have all concluded is necessary.”

“The future of