Supreme Court: States Can Ban Gender Transitions for Children
The Supreme Court ruled that states can ban sex change procedures for minors, and — crucially — that transgender identity is not a protected class under the Constitution.
In its landmark decision in United States v. Skrmetti, the Court upheld Tennessee’s SB1 law, which prohibits doctors from performing sex change operations as well as prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to children for the purpose of gender transition.
The Court rejected claims that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause, applying only rational basis review — the most deferential standard — and finding Tennessee’s interest in protecting minors from irreversible, experimental treatments to be plainly legitimate. As the Court noted, “many of these procedures, when performed on a minor for such purposes, are experimental in nature and not supported by high-quality, long-term medical studies.”
But the bigger headline is this: the Court declined to invent a new “suspect class” for transgender individuals, resisting activist pressure to elevate gender identity to the same legal status as race or sex. That move was always unlikely, given the Court’s long-standing refusal to create suspect classes for other groups — including homeless people, people with disabilities, the poor, and the elderly.
The decision sends a powerful message to lower courts: the Constitution does not require states to affirm gender ideology — and courts are not in the business of creating new protected classes on demand.
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