Tennessee law – Memphis Flyer

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.

A bill that bans gender affirming healthcare for minors in Tennessee was signed into law on Thursday, March 2nd by Governor Bill Lee. The law will go into effect on July 1, 2023 but groups on all sides of the issue are speaking out.

Senate Bill 1 prohibits “licensed healthcare professionals, establishments, and facilities from performing or offering to perform on a person under 18 years of age, or administering or offering to administer to a minor, a medical procedure if the performance or administration of the procedure is for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the immutable characteristics of the reproductive system that define the minor as male or female, as determined by anatomy and genetics existing at the time of birth.”

The bill also prohibits healthcare providers from “treating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.”

This legislation also allows civil litigation against a healthcare provider who performs such procedures. These lawsuits could be brought within 30 years from the date the minor reaches 18 years of age, or within 10 years from the date of the minor’s death if the minor dies. It also allows relatives of a minor to bring a wrongful death action against a healthcare provider in such cases under certain conditions.

Up until recently, Tennessee law allowed for minors to access gender-affirming care.

Groups like Heritage Action For America, a conservative organization, have praised Lee’s passage of the legislation. In a statement, vice president of field operations for the organization, Janae Stracke, said that “the last things girls and boys struggling with gender confusion need are dangerous cross-sex hormones and experimental, life-altering operations.”

Stracke also said that minors “need compassionate care that addresses the underlying mental health problems associated with gender confusion and dysphoria,” and that “SB 1 will protect Tennessee children from lifelong physical and psychological pain.”

While the signing of this bill into law has been praised by some groups, others have been vocal about their opposition, saying that this legislation is actually harmful for minors.

In February, Jace Wilder of the Tennessee Equality Project said that the legislation “ignores the actual wishes and desires of the trans youth.”

Molly Rose Quinn, executive director of OUTMemphis said that “these bills are aggressive attacks on best-practice medical care and free speech,” and Lee’s decision to sign them “amounts to state sponsored violence.”

“The government has no place inserting itself into the private medical decisions that should be made by doctors, patients, and their families alone,” Quinn said.

Jenna Dunn, trans services specialist for OUTMemphis said, “to the youth of Tennessee and to the parents that support them, I want you to always remember that no matter what happens in life you are amazing, you are beautiful, worthy of joy, happiness, and respect. Do not ever allow anyone to tear you down mentally or physically, always demand respect and don’t accept anything less.”

Ivy Hill, director of gender justice for the Campaign for Southern Equality said, “the passage of this law cutting off trans young people’s access to life-saving care is devastating — but it won’t stop our community from holding and supporting each other.”

“Legal partners are preparing to challenge the law, community groups are supporting trans folks with strategies for healing and resilience, and we’re honored to be connecting families with funding, information, and provider referrals to preserve continuity of care for as many people as we can. No law can stop the transgender community from charting our paths to thriving and living authentically,” said Hill.