By Renee K. Carlson and Doug Wardlow
Today the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of protecting Tennessee’s vulnerable children from the irreversible damage of experimental medicine and harmful medical procedures, often referred to as pediatric medical transition or so-called “gender affirming care.” In this landmark decision, United States of America v. Skrmetti, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s law 6-3, which prohibits healthcare providers from administering hormones and puberty blockers for minors, or performing experimental medical procedures on children for so-called “gender affirming care.”
The Court reasoned that Tennessee’s law does not violate equal protection under the law, and was not subject to heightened scrutiny (the Court’s most stringent standard of review when analyzing constitutional claims based on certain classifications), such as sex-based discrimination. While the plaintiffs challenging the law argued that Tennessee’s law discriminates based on sex, the Court analyzed the law under the rational basis standard. The Court reasoned that the law is a medical treatment and applies to all minors in the state, and is not sex-based discrimination when it comes enacting legal safeguards regarding the use of puberty blockers, hormones, and pediatric medical transition surgeries for minors struggling with gender dysphoria.
Thus, it is in the state’s purview to create regulations ensuring the health and safety of its most vulnerable population: children. In rebutting the Plaintiffs’ argument that Tennessee’s law “operates to force conformity with sex,” the Court affirmed the state’s foundational reasoning for the law in the first place, stating: “it was not improper to conclude that kids benefit from additional time to ‘appreciate their sex’ before embarking on body-altering paths…Nor is it improper for the state to protect minors from procedures that ‘encourage them to become disdainful of their sex.’” Put simply, “[a] concern about potentially irreversible medical procedures for a child is not a form of stereotyping.”
Even though the Court did not decide whether transgender status is a protected class under the Equal Protection Clause, the ruling has important, positive implications for cases in other contexts, including Title IX, and it signals that the Court’s earlier, problematic holdings in Bostock and Harris Funeral Homes may have limited reach.
True North Legal and Minnesota Family Council have been leading the charge to protect children in Minnesota from the gender industry here in Minnesota. In 2023, Renee Carlson, General Counsel for True North Legal, provided legal testimony on legislation which gives Minnesota courts temporary emergency jurisdiction over children, removing them from their parents’ home if those parents do not affirm a child’s gender identity. True North Legal encouraged Minnesota lawmakers to protect children’s well-being and parental rights warning that laws like Minnesota’s prohibit responsible adults from caring for their child in violation of parental rights, while steering the child down a “dangerous path to self-destruction.”
Despite the testimony of True North Legal and others, this dangerous and consequential bill is now law in Minnesota. Since Tennessee’s law was enacted other states and even countries across the globe have pulled back from steering kids into harmful gender ideology. To be clear, we have the utmost compassion for children and families faced with the struggles of gender distress and gender dysphoria. That is why this decision is crucial. Law is catching up with reality–many children struggling with gender distress should not be funneled into a one-size-fits-all “gender affirming approach” which subjects them to life-long consequences like sterility and adverse psychological consequences. These devastating consequences cannot even be fully remedied by the long and painful road of detransitioning. Especially when a growing body of evidence has shown that gender dysphoria in adolescents often resolves with time or other much less invasive and dangerous approaches. With this decision, United States of America v. Skrmetti, Minnesota has the opportunity to ensure that Minnesota children receive those same protections.
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