US Supreme Court upholds Tennessee on gender affirming care for children in setback for trans rights

The decision comes as the Trump administration continues its push to regulate the lives of transgender people, including restricting access to sports competitions and dictating which public spaces they can use.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors in a stunning setback to transgender rights.The justices’ 6-3 decision in a case from Tennessee effectively protects from legal challenges many efforts by President Donald Trump’s Republican administration and state governments to roll back protections for transgender people. Another 26 states have laws similar to Tennessee’s.Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for a conservative majority that the law does not violate the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which requires the government to treat similarly situated people the same.“This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field. The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound,” Roberts wrote.“The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best.”In a dissent for the court’s three liberal justices that she summarised aloud in the courtroom, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote, “By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.”The decision comes amid a range of other federal and state efforts to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use.In April, Trump’s administration sued Maine for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in girls’ sports.The Republican president also has sought to block federal spending on gender-affirming medical care for those under age 19 — instead promoting talk therapy only to treat young transgender people.In addition, the Supreme Court has allowed him to kick transgender service members out of the military, even as court fights continue. The president also signed another order to define the sexes as only male and female.The president of the American Academy of Paediatrics, Dr. Susan Kressly, said in a statement the organisation is “unwavering” in its support of gender-affirming care and “stands with paediatricians and families making health care decisions together and free from political interference.”Kressly said the Supreme Court’s decision “sets a dangerous precedent for legislative interference in the practice of medicine and the patient-physician relationship.”The justices acted a month after the United Kingdom’s top court delivered a setback to transgender rights, ruling unanimously that the Equality Act means trans women can be excluded from some groups and single-sex spaces, like changing rooms, homeless shelters, swimming areas and medical or counselling services provided only to women.Five years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that transgender people, as well as gay and lesbian people, are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace. That decision remains unaffected by Wednesday’s ruling.