A Massive Victory for Children Everywhere: The Supreme Court Upholds Tennessee Law Restricting Child Sex Change Interventions

Today, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning child sex change interventions including puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures.

Specifically, the Court held that Tennessee’s law is constitutional and does not discriminate based on sex or transgender status. This means that laws like Tennessee’s are legitimate and lawful, opening the door for other states to enact similar protections for children.

“Today the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, that governments can enact commonsense policies that protect children from dangerous medical procedures,” said Stanley Goldfarb, MD, Chairman of Do No Harm. “The decision should end the debate over laws like Tennessee’s, and it could have important ramifications for other commonsense policies that resist radical gender ideology.” 

“The Supreme Court’s strong decision today is a massive win in the fight to protect children from harmful gender ideology. Transgender treatments for minors are experimental medicine not backed by reliable evidence,” said Kristina Rasmussen, Executive Director, Do No Harm. “Do No Harm is proud to have been in the fight to expose this ideology over the last several years and support Tennessee in this case. We will continue to work nationally and in other states to protect children from the harms of sex change treatments.”

Tennessee’s law bans procedures enabling “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to address “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.”

The law reflects the fact that child sex change interventions are dangerous, carry unknown long-term risks, and are supported by weak, dubious, and error-filled evidence.

However, in April 2023, the ACLU, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP sued Tennessee to block enforcement of SB 1, arguing that the law violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, as well as Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act.

That same month, the Department of Justice intervened in the case and filed its own complaint against Tennessee, also arguing that the law violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The core of the plaintiffs’ argument is that Tennessee’s law discriminates on the basis of sex.

Laws that discriminate based on sex are subject to “intermediate scrutiny,” a heightened standard of review that requires states to demonstrate that the laws further an important government interest – and do so by means that are substantially related to that interest.

This standard of review is substantially more difficult to meet.

The Court held that Tennessee’s law did not discriminate on the basis of sex, nor did it discriminate on the basis of transgender status.

This is a massive victory for children in Tennessee and across the country. By upholding Tennessee’s law, the Court has provided a green light for states to enact laws protecting minors from harmful sex change procedures.

The Court’s ruling could potentially embolden more states to enact restrictions on these interventions, or encourage states with existing restrictions to strengthen their protections. Additionally, this ruling is a major blow to gender ideologues and activists intent on pushing sex change interventions on children.

The Court’s ruling that bans on child sex change interventions do not discriminate on the basis of sex could undermine future constitutional challenges to similar laws.