The U.S. Supreme Court has granted a petition for divided argument in U.S. v. Skrmetti, the federal challenge to Tennessee’s law prohibiting doctors from prescribing treatments for gender dysphoria to transgender youth.
The court previously agreed in June to take up the case, as well as its companion case, L.W. v. Skrmetti, during the 2024-2025 court session.
The outcome of the case will likely determine the fate of similar laws in 23 other states, where Republican lawmakers have sought to criminalize the provision of gender-affirming care, like puberty blockers or hormones, to transgender youth to help them transition and assuage their feelings of gender dysphoria.
Two other states — Arizona and New Hampshire — have only banned surgical interventions on minors. Oral arguments in the case have been set for December 4, 2024.
A federal judge initially blocked the law from taking effect, but Tennessee appealed the ruling and asked that it be reversed. The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals subsequently lifted that injunction, thereby allowing the law to take effect. A few months later, the 6th Circuit rejected a separate request seeking to block enforcement of the law.
The Justice Department intervened, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review the 6th Circuit’s rationale for the decision, in hopes of reversing it.
The plaintiffs in the original L.W. v. Skrmetti lawsuit challenging the ban — three families with transgender children and a Memphis-based doctor — are being represented by a coalition of legal organizations and firms, including Lambda Legal, the AmericanCivilLibertiesUnion, the ACLU of Tennessee, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP.
Lawyers for the plaintiffs recently petitioned the court for divided argument, enabling them to split time with the U.S. Department of Justice in arguing for the ban to be overturned. On October 21, the court granted that request.
As a result, Chase Strangio, the co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, will now appear before the high court to argue for overturning the Tennessee ban — and others like it — on behalf of his clients, with those arguments becoming part of the case’s official record.
Strangio’s appearance will make him the first out transgender person to argue a case before the prestigious legal body.
Strangio is the leading U.S. legal expert on transgender rights, ACLU Legal Director Cecillia Wang told Reuters.
“He brings to the lectern not only brilliant constitutional lawyering, but also the tenacity and heart of a civil rights champion,” Wang said.
A Maryland judge has ordered the Montgomery County Board of Education to pay $1.5 million to parents who sued the school system over its refusal to allow opt-outs from lessons involving LGBTQ-themed books.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that the county violated the religious freedom and parental rights of three families of elementary school students -- one Muslim, one Catholic, and one Ukrainian Orthodox -- who objected to being denied an opt-out from lessons using LGBTQ-themed books.
According to attorneys for the families in the case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, they objected to books that allegedly promoted "gender transitioning, Pride parades, and pronoun preferences to children as young as three or four years old."
A new study claims that transgender women exhibit strength and overall physical fitness comparable to cisgender women after several months of gender-affirming hormone therapy.
In the landmark study, published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, Brazilian scientists reviewed existing research comparing the body composition and physical fitness of transgender people before and after hormone therapy with that of cisgender people.
Overall, the analysis examined 52 studies involving 6,485 people -- including 2,943 transgender women, 2,309 transgender men, 568 cisgender women, and 665 cisgender men -- ranging in age from 14 to 41.
A New York State jury has awarded $2 million to a woman who underwent a double mastectomy at age 16 as part of treatment for gender dysphoria.
The verdict, which marks the first successful medical malpractice lawsuit brought by a detransitioner, was announced last week following a three-week trial in White Plains, N.Y.
The plaintiff, 22-year-old Fox Varian of Yorktown Heights, accused her psychologist, Kenneth Einhorn, and plastic surgeon, Dr. Simon Chin, of failing to obtain adequate consent by fully informing her of the risks associated with the procedure before she agreed to undergo it in 2019.
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