WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court is allowing Idaho to enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth while lawsuits over the law proceed, reversing lower courts.
The justices’ order Monday allows the state to enact a 2023 law that subjects doctors to up to 10 years in prison if they provide hormones, puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care to minors under 18. the two transgender teens who filed suit to challenge the law will still be able to get care.
The court’s three liberal justices would have kept the law on hold. Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that it would have been better to let the case proceed “free from our intervention.”
Justice Neil Gorsuch, of the conservative majority, wrote that it is “a welcome development” that the court is reining in an overly broad lower court order.
A federal judge in Idaho blocked the law in its entirety after ruling it was necessary to do so to protect the teenagers, who are identified under pseudonyms in court documents.
Lawyers for the teens wrote in court documents that the teens’ “gender dysphoria was dramatically alleviated as a result of puberty blockers and estrogen therapy.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the teens and their families, called the Supreme Court order “a terrible outcome for transgender youth and their families across the state. Today’s decision allows the State to terminate the care that thousands of families depend on, while at the same time sowing further confusion and disruption.”
Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in a statement that the law “ensures that children are not subjected to these life-altering drugs and procedures. Those who suffer from gender dysphoria deserve love, support, and medical care rooted in biological reality. Denying the basic truth that boys and girls are biologically different harms our children.”
Gender-affirming care for young people is supported by all major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Psychiatric Association.
Medical professionals define gender dysphoria as psychological distress experienced by those whose gender expression does not match their gender identity.
The move comes as judges may also soon consider whether to adopt bans in Kentucky and Tennessee that an appeals court allowed to be enforced amid legal disputes.
At least 23 states have enacted laws that restrict or prohibit gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, and most of these states face lawsuits. A federal judge found the Arkansas ban unconstitutional. Montana’s ban is also temporarily suspended.
States that have enacted laws restricting or prohibiting gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors are Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina , North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and West Virginia.
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