Supreme Court rightly allows states to hit brakes on gender meddling for kids

States are in the best position to grapple with these complicated issues and to reflect the values of those who live within their borders.

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• The Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s law restricting gender-affirming care for minors, leaving the decision to states.
• The court ruled that the law doesn’t violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
• The decision allows states to regulate gender-affirming treatments for minors, reflecting the values of their residents.
• The long-term effects of these treatments are still unknown, prompting caution from some health organizations.

While liberals in the news media are painting the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 18 decision on transgender health care as a “blow to transgender rights,” it’s a simplistic view that overlooks what the court was asked to do.

The 6-3 ruling in United States v. Skrmetti – split along ideological lines, with conservatives in the majority − upholds Tennessee’s law restricting so-called gender-affirming care for youth experiencing gender dysphoria. 

In recent years, 27 states have passed laws or policies limiting those procedures for minors, so the consequences of the court’s decision will be felt nationwide. 

The question before the court was whether Tennessee’s law violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause by prohibiting cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers for minors. The Biden administration and the plaintiffs challenging the law claimed it was unconstitutional since a biological male teenager could be given testosterone to treat delayed puberty, while a biological female teenager would be denied the same hormone to treat gender dysphoria.

The court’s majority didn’t buy that argument, and Chief Justice John Roberts clearly laid out the court’s rationale. 

“This case carries with it the weight of fierce scientific and policy debates about the safety, efficacy, and propriety of medical treatments in an evolving field,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion. “The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound. The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best.”

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Rather, in concluding that the law doesn’t violate the 14th Amendment, Roberts wrote, “We leave questions regarding its policy to the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.”

Supreme Court upholds Tennessee law. As with abortion, let states decide.

That’s the right approach for now. 

States are in the best position to grapple with these complicated issues and to reflect the values of those who live within their borders. That’s been the case with abortion after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. 

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Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti called the new ruling a win, saying the “common sense of Tennessee voters prevailed over judicial activism.”

“A bipartisan supermajority of Tennessee’s elected representatives carefully considered the evidence and voted to protect kids from irreversible decisions they cannot yet fully understand,” Skrmetti said in a statement.

It’s important to note the Supreme Court didn’t do anything to prevent states from offering hormones and puberty blockers to gender-confused youth. Rather, it gave states the green light to regulate those treatments.

More research is needed on long-term effects of ‘gender-affirming care’

As Roberts wrote, the implications for all involved in these cases are profound. Parents of teens experiencing gender dysphoria obviously want to do what’s best for their children. Yet, the long-term consequences of these life-altering treatments are unknown. 

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A 2024 review from England’s well-regarded National Health Service advised “extreme caution” in the use of such drugs for minors, and the country will offer puberty-blocking drugs only for those in clinical trials. 

Other European countries are backing off the use of these procedures, too.

Many federal and state laws are designed to protect youth, from the required use of car seats to the age when they may legally drive or buy alcohol.

Surely, states should also have the right to protect children from experimental procedures that could irrevocably change the rest of their lives.

And now they do.

Ingrid Jacques is a columnist at USA TODAY. Contact her at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter: @Ingrid_Jacques