For two years, several Kentucky families have fought in court to overturn the state’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices doomed that effort with a pivotal and controversial ruling Wednesday.
Oliver Hall, trans health director for the Kentucky Health Justice Network, criticized the powerful court’s decision in a statement, saying: “Undoubtedly, the government can make it nearly impossible to access gender-affirming care, but what they can’t do is stop us from accessing it anyway, from transitioning, or from relentlessly showing up for each other.”
Several trans children and their parents sued in 2023 after the Republican-run state legislature blocked Kentucky doctors from providing trans or other gender-nonconforming patients under 18 years old with gender-affirming health care – specifically medication that delays puberty or hormone therapy, such as estrogen or testosterone treatments.
The Kentucky families’ case challenged the restrictions on hormone therapy but not on gender-affirming surgery for trans minors. Experts have said it’s vanishingly rare for minors to get such surgical treatments anyway.
This week, when the Supreme Court upheld a similar ban in Tennessee, that effectively marked the end of the line for the Kentucky lawsuit, according to a spokesperson for the ACLU of Kentucky, which represents plaintiffs in that case.
Hall, from the Kentucky Health Justice Network, said the Supreme Court’s decision is “based on junk science and fear.” It won’t stop people from showing up for trans youth and helping “get them the care they need.”
A wide range of major medical and psychological professional associations agree that gender-affirming care, including hormone therapy, is evidence-based and can be life-saving for trans, nonbinary and other gender-nonconforming people.
Doctors, parents of trans kids and LGBTQ+ people have spoken out against gender-affirming care bans like Kentucky’s, calling such laws discriminatory and dangerous.
Conservative politicians in the commonwealth and other states that have passed these bans have said their policies will protect trans children.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, made a similar comment Wednesday in a statement celebrating how the Supreme Court ruling ensures Kentucky’s ban, dubbed Senate Bill 150, will stay in place.
“As parents and public officials, we have a responsibility to protect our children from harm,” Coleman said. “That’s exactly what Kentucky’s General Assembly did with the passage of SB 150, creating a commonsense measure to safeguard minors from life-altering medical procedures.”
Coleman highlighted how attorneys general offices in multiple states have defended gender-affirming care bans in court, saying they’ve “finally upheld the law that will protect our young people from irreparable damage.”
In recent years, Republican politicians across the nation have promoted anti-trans rhetoric and approved policies that limit trans people’s ability to get gender-affirming care and to participate in public life.
In the midst of the ruling and a political atmosphere that is often hostile towards LGBTQ+ people, many trans Kentuckians are supporting each other and speaking out.
In its decision this week, the Supreme Court’s conservative majority reviewed and upheld a Sept. 2023 federal appeals court decision that allowed Kentucky and Tennessee to move forward with restricting gender-affirming care while the litigation continued.
Core to the Republican-appointed justices’ ruling was their determination that Tennessee’s ban doesn’t violate transgender people’s constitutional right to equal protection under the law.
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that policy issues regarding trans youth’s access to gender-affirming care are left, in this case, to “the people, their elected representatives, and the democratic process.”
“The voices in these debates raise sincere concerns; the implications for all are profound,” he wrote. “The Equal Protection Clause does not resolve these disagreements. Nor does it afford us license to decide them as we see best.”
Looking ahead, the ACLU of Kentucky’s legal director, Corey Shapiro, indicated the organization will keep fighting for trans Kentuckians in other cases.
“The Supreme Court has failed to protect families’ freedoms and allowed politicians to target transgender youth. This is a painful setback, and it is clear the court will not protect these children,” Shapiro said in a statement. “But it will not stop us from using all available legal tools to fight back against the political extremists targeting transgender people’s safety and dignity.”
