Tag: gender affirming care

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Legal Professionals Urge SCOTUS to Stop Tennessee’s Gender-Affirming Care Ban

Photo: Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

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.

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Judge Rules In Favor Of Tennessee’s Ban On Gender-Affirming Care For Minors

(Credit: Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash)

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has allowed for the Tennessee law that restricts transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming medical care to remain in effect. This ruling comes months after the court initially blocked the law from taking effect in July.

Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Tennessee (ACLU-TN), and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP filed the lawsuit on behalf of Samatha and Brian Williams of Nashville and their 15-year-old daughter, L.W., in April of this year. The suit was also filed on behalf of two other families, as well as Dr. Susan N. Lacy.

The state law was signed by Governor Bill Lee in March. It prohibits healthcare professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors. The law was set to take effect on July 1st.

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.

“The law prohibits medical providers from treating transgender youth with evidence-based, gender-affirming medical treatment and requires youth currently receiving gender-affirming care to end that care by March 31st, 2024,” said the ACLU.

Following the ruling, Lambda Legal, ACLU, ACLU-TN, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP issued a joint statement calling the ruling a “devastating result for transgender youth and their families in Tennessee and across the region.”

“The disastrous impact of Tennessee’s law and all others like it has already been felt in thousands of homes and communities,” the statement said. “Denying transgender youth equality before the law and needlessly withholding the necessary medical care their families and their doctors know is right for them has caused and will continue to cause serious harm. We are assessing our next steps and will take further action in defense of our clients and the constitutional rights of transgender people in Tennessee and across the country.”

Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti called the ruling “a big win for democracy.”

“Decisions that are not clearly resolved by the Constitution should be resolved by the people through their elected representatives,” Skrmetti said in a statement. “I am so proud of our team who stood strong against the overwhelming resources arrayed against Tennessee in this case.”

Jeffrey S. Sutton, chief judge for the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, delivered the opinion, citing work from medical organizations such as the World Professional Association for Transgender Health.

“Throughout this period, the association expressed caution about using medical interventions that would alter the secondary characteristics of an individual’s biological sex,” Sutton wrote.

Sutton also argued that there is a “long tradition of permitting state governments to regulate medical treatments for adults and children.”

“So long as a federal statute does not stand in the way and so long as an enumerated constitutional guarantee does not apply, the states may regulate or ban medical technologies they deem unsafe,” Sutton said.

The opinion also said that “parental rights do not alter this conclusion because parents do not have a constitutional right to obtain reasonably banned treatments for their children.”

However, the dissenting opinion, written by circuit judge Helene N. White, argues that the law “deprives parents of their right to make medical decisions affecting their children.”

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TEP Expects Attacks on Adult Gender-Affirming Care and School Curriculum in Next Legislative Session

Photo by Tingey Injury Law Firm on Unsplash

The Tennessee Equality Project (TEP) expects ongoing attacks on adult gender-affirming care in the next legislative session.

This prediction comes days after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Tennessee’s law that bans doctors from administering gender-affirming care to minors. A preliminary injunction was issued prior to this ruling in late June.

Senate Bill 1 was signed into law by Governor Bill Lee on March 2nd and prohibits healthcare professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors. The law was set to take effect on July 1st.

This legislation will make 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.

“Not content to ban it for youth, I think the legislature will probably explore ways to make it [gender-affirming care] more difficult for adults,” said Chris Sanders, executive director of TEP and the Tennessee Equality Project Foundation.

The Campaign for Southern Equality released a report entitled “LGBTQ Tennesseans: A Report of the 2021 Southern LGBTQ Experiences Survey,” in which they highlighted the experiences of more than 4,000 LGBTQ people in the South. The report said that Tennessee does not “have laws guaranteeing LGBTQ access to healthcare or protecting LGBTQ people from discrimination in healthcare.”

The report also stated that state Medicaid policy and state employee health insurance policy “explicitly exclude coverage for gender affirming care.”

While the state does allow for adults to access gender-affirming care, there have been other issues that have stalled progress for transgender people in Tennessee. The Flyer recently reported that a federal lawsuit regarding changes to gender markers on Tennessee birth certificates was dismissed.

Sanders explained that he believed that progress has not been linear in the state, and that it actually takes a “zig-zagging” path. He also explained that there aren’t many legal protections in the state aside from what the federal government provides.

There is also the possibility of “more attacks” on school curriculum on the elementary and secondary level, as well as in higher education, Sanders said.

Governor Bill Lee signed Senate Bill 102 into law in May of 2023, which allows Tennessee school and university employees to skip implicit bias training. In 2021, the legislature passed a bill that “requires an LEA or public charter school to notify a student’s parent or guardian prior to commencing instruction of a sexual orientation or gender identity curriculum.”

“You see those kinds of fights play out in local school boards around the state as well,” Sanders said.

Sanders cited that a school board member in Wilson County, Tennessee, proposed a policy that would out transgender youth in schools. He explained that the policy has yet to advance, but he said it is typical of the types of things that are playing out around the state.

“I can’t imagine there would be a serious proposal that would advance like that [in Shelby County], but some of your West Tennessee school boards I’m sure, given time, will pick up those things,” Sanders said.

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Lawsuit Filed Against Tennessee Law Banning Gender-Affirming Care For Minors

(Credit: Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash)

Organizations and families are challenging Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

Senate Bill 1 was signed into law by Governor Bill Lee on March 2nd and prohibits healthcare professionals from administering gender-affirming care to minors. The law is set to take effect on July 1.

This legislation will make 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.

The Flyer also reported in March that the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, and Lambda Legal (a national organization “committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people, and everyone living with HIV”) issued a statement where they had promised legal action against the Tennessee law that will prohibit gender-affirming care for minors.

According to the Campaign for Southern Equality, these organizations, along with Akin Gump Strauss Hauer and Feld LLP, have filed the case, L.W. v. Skrmetti, on behalf of “several trans youth, their parents and a medical provider.”

The preliminary statement of this complaint said that the law was passed “over the sustained and robust opposition of medical experts in Tennessee and across the country.”

“It was also passed over the pleas of families across Tennessee who urged lawmakers not to interfere in the medical decision-making of parents, their minor children, and their doctors,” the complaint stated.

The complaint also said that this law will disrupt and prevent medical care for “hundreds of adolescents across Tennessee,” and that it violates the constitutional rights of minors and their parents. 

It also stated the effects of gender dysphoria, which was defined as a “serious medical condition characterized by clinically significant distress caused by incongruence between a person’s gender identity and the sex they were designated at birth.”

“All of the major medical associations in the United States recognize that adolescents with gender dysphoria may require medical interventions to treat severe distress,” continued the complaint. “In providing this medically necessary healthcare, sometimes referred to as ‘gender-affirming care,’ medical providers are guided by widely accepted protocols for assessing and treating transgender adolescents.”

According to the complaint, this law prevents healthcare providers from following “evidence-based protocols.”

Phil Cobucci, founder of inclusion tennessee, said they have heard many families were worried about the passing of this law since the beginning of this legislative session.

“We’ve been working tirelessly to prepare and ensure their transgender adolescents and their families can continue to access care in their home state,” said Cobucci. “The filing of this lawsuit gives us great hope, and we appreciate the legal organizations and plaintiffs for their leadership in court. As we await a decision in this groundbreaking legal case, we will continue to support trans youth and their families every way that we can.”

Rev. Jasmine Beach-Ferrara, executive director at the Campaign for Southern Equality, stated the law is “flatly unconstitutional” and should be struck down.

“We hope that the court will grant relief so that trans youth in Tennessee can continue accessing the health care that they need and deserve, without leaving their home state,” said Beach-Ferrara.

The Campaign for Southern Equality, inclusion tennessee, and OUTMemphis have set up resources for families of transgender youth to access out-of-state providers by providing emergency grants of $250.