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The US Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to allow Idaho to enforce its ban on gender-affirming medical procedures for minors while legal challenges proceed.
The law bars medications or surgeries that alter a minor’s appearance or affirm a perception of their sex that is inconsistent with their biological sex.
“The district court’s order promised to run for the life of this lawsuit, thus preventing Idaho from executing any aspect of its law for years. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs face no harm from the partial stay the State requests,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote.
Critics argue such procedures are abusive, while advocates say they are crucial care that will now be blocked.
The ruling does not affect the plaintiffs seeking care, but prevents a broader injunction against enforcing the law.
“While the court’s ruling today importantly does not touch upon the constitutionality of this law, it is nonetheless an awful result for transgender youth and their families across the state,” the ACLU stated. “Today’s ruling allows the state to shut down the care that thousands of families rely on while sowing further confusion and disruption. Nonetheless, today’s result only leaves us all the more determined to defeat this law in the courts entirely, making Idaho a safer state to raise every family.”
“Plaintiffs only seek estrogen hormone therapies, yet the district court issued a universal injunction against the law in its entirety, stopping enforcement even in situations where Plaintiffs’ experts agree medical intervention is not appropriate,” Idaho officials wrote. “Those applications involve the most extreme surgical treatments and the most vulnerable minors, who will lose the protections of Idaho’s law and will instead be governed by an injunction obtained by others who do not and cannot speak for them.”
“Caitlyn Jenner is out there every day tweeting about this kind of thing. Caitlin understands how unfair this is,” journalist Megyn Kelly wrote. “It’s not about trans people.”
“I think most trans people probably agree with us,” Kelly said. “It’s just the few who try to take advantage of sport, and it’s always a male-to-female trans person. It’s never the other way around. Why? Because we’re the ones who can be taken advantage of.”
It is one of many similar state laws that aim to restrict gender-affirming treatments for minors, though some have been blocked in lower courts.
The legal debate centers on whether such laws protect vulnerable children or discriminate against transgender youth.
