Legal experts have filed a brief on behalf of transgender youth in the state in hopes of stopping a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors from taking effect.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee (ACLU-TN) said they are urging the Supreme Court of the United States to stop the state from banning hormone therapy for trans adolescents.
Last week ACLU-TN joined the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP in filing a brief on behalf of Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville and their 16-year-old transgender daughter, Dr. Susan Lacy of Memphis, and two families who filed anonymously.
This brief is in response to a June 2024 decision to hear a challenge to Tennessee’s ban. Advocates claim the law is a violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.
Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, staff attorney at the ACLU of Tennessee, said that Tennessee and other Southern states have “become a testing ground for targeted assault on the constitutional rights of trans Tennesseans.”
In September of 2023 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed for the law restricting transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming medical care to remain in effect. The ruling came months after the court initially blocked the law from taking effect in July of the same year.
Governor Bill Lee signed the legislation into law March of 2023, and it prohibits healthcare professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors. This legislation makes gender-affirming hormone therapy and puberty blockers inaccessible, and trans people in Tennessee will not have access to this care until they reach the age of 18. Similar restrictions have been made in states like Arkansas and Alabama.
“Every day this law remains in place, it inflicts further pain, injustice, and discrimination on trans youth and their families,” Cameron-Vaughn said in a statement. “Make no mistake — if the Supreme Court fails to protect trans Tennesseans’ access to the medical care they need to survive and thrive, local politicians will go even further. They will continue to rewrite the history that our schools teach, discriminate based on what we look like, where we’re from, and who we love, and control if, when, and how Tennesseans choose to start their families.”
Parents of the 16-year-old plaintiff said it has been “painful” to see their child not be able to access “life-saving healthcare,” and they’ve had to travel outside of the state for care.
“We have a confident, happy daughter now, who is free to be herself and she is thriving,” Samantha Williams, mother of 16-year-old L.W., said. “Tennessee’s ban has forced us at great expense to seek routine healthcare visits out of state and may at some point force us to leave Tennessee — the only home our children have ever known. No family should have to make this kind of choice.”
Officials said oral arguments are expected to be heard this term.
