United States v. Skrmetti
Issues
Does banning gender-affirming care for minors violate the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment?
This case asks the Supreme Court to determine the extent to which the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause applies to gender-affirming healthcare for transgender minors. Tennessee’s Senate Bill 1 prohibits medical treatments intended to alleviate gender dysphoria or initiate gender transition for minors. The United States argues that the Bill violates the Equal Protection Clause by withholding medical care on the basis of a patient’s sex, or alternatively, that the Bill discriminates against a quasi-suspect classification: transgender status. Skrmetti contends that the Bill applies equally to Tennessee youth regardless of gender, that it is not motivated by discriminatory intent, and that transgender status does not meet the quasi-suspect class characteristics of being discrete, insular, immutable, and politically powerless. The case will have powerful implications for future state policies regarding healthcare and transgender care, especially for minors, in the continuing social and political conflict over LGBTQ+ rights.
Questions as Framed for the Court by the Parties
Whether Tennessee Senate Bill 1, which prohibits all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity,” violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
On March 2, 2023, Tennessee passed Senate Bill 1, which went into effect on July 1, 2023. L.W. v. Skrmetti at 469. The law prohibited minors in Tennessee from receiving gender-affirming care for gender dysphoria or enabling minors to live with a gender identity inconsistent with their sex assigned at birth. Id. at 470.
The authors would like to thank Professors Deborah Dinner and Sheri Lynn Johnson for their insights into this case.
Additional Resources
- Clarke, Jessica A., Sex Discrimination Formalism, 109 Virginia Law Review (19 May 2024).
- WBIR Staff, "This Could Be a Pretty Big Case", WBIR (1 July 2024).
- McCall, J. Holly, U.S. Supreme Court will hear challenge to Tennessee’s ban on care for transgender minors, Tennessee Lookout (24 June 2024).
- Herner, Hannah, Tennessee Trans Health Care Ban Nears Supreme Court Argument, Nashville Scene (21 October 2024).