The Texas Supreme Court on Friday upheld the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, dealing a blow to a group of medical providers, national LGBTQ organizations and families with transgender children who have sued to block it. it.
The 8-1 decision leaves in place a law that has altered care for about 30,000 transgender Texans for nearly a year. The state’s highest court in August denied a motion to block enforcement of the ban after an appeal by the state attorney general’s office automatically lifted a lower court’s injunction.
Texas District Judge Maria Cantú Hexsel, a Democrat, wrote in the Aug. 25 ruling granting the injunction that the law, Senate Bill 14, likely violates the state constitution by infringing on parents’ right to make health care decisions. for their children and for discriminating against transgender youth based on their gender and transgender status.
It also violates the ability of health care providers to follow “well-established and evidence-based” standards of care under threat of losing their medical license, Cantú Hexsel wrote in August.
Gender-affirming health care for transgender adults and minors is considered safe and medically necessary by all major medical organizations, although not all transgender people choose to medically transition or access care. The Texas law, signed last year by Republican Governor Greg Abbott, prohibits transgender minors from accessing puberty blockers, hormones and transition surgeries, although the latter is generally not recommended for those under 18.
Twenty-four other Republican-led states have passed laws that similarly restrict care, according to the Movement Advancement Project, a nonprofit that tracks LGBTQ laws, although federal court orders are blocking enforcement of bans in Montana. and Ohio. A federal judge earlier this month struck down a Florida law that prohibits access to gender-affirming health care for minors and certain adults, and a similar Arkansas law was ruled unconstitutional last year.
The Supreme Court said this week it will decide during its next term whether state bans on gender-affirming medical care for minors are constitutional, setting the stage for a blockbuster showdown over transgender rights.
“We do not attempt to identify the most appropriate treatment for a child suffering from gender dysphoria. This is a complicated issue, hotly debated by medical experts and policymakers across the country and the world,” Judge Rebeca Aizpuru Huddle, who was appointed to the court by Abbott, wrote on Friday. in the court’s decision. “And certainly, neither this Court nor any party in this case suggests that children who suffer from gender dysphoria do not deserve treatment and support.”
Huddle emphasized Friday that the question before the court — whether Senate Bill 14 violates the Texas Constitution — “is clearly legal.”
“We conclude that the Legislature made a permissible and rational policy choice to limit the types of medical procedures available to children, particularly in light of the relative birth of gender dysphoria and its various modes of treatment and the Legislature’s express constitutional authority to regulate the practice of medicine,” Huddle wrote on Friday.
Legal advocates who sued to block the law last summer called Friday’s ruling “unnecessarily cruel.”
“It is impossible to overstate the devastating impact of this cruel and arbitrary decision on Texas’ transgender youth and the families who love and support them,” said Karen Loewy, senior attorney and director of Lambda Legal’s constitutional law practice. in a statement.
“The court’s decision to reject safe and affirmative care will have lasting impacts on every person in Texas,” said Lynly Egyes, legal director of the Transgender Law Center. “All Texans, no matter what they look like or what neighborhood they live in, should know that we will continue to work alongside our partners to fight for the rights of trans Texans and their families.”
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