The Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on transgender surgeries for minors, finding that the state’s law is not discriminatory.
In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that the law, SB 1, “satisfies rational basis review,” which it described as “any reasonably conceivable state of facts that could provide a rational basis for the classification.”
Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority, “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. 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.”
Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion that the case “serves as a useful reminder that the American people and their representatives are entitled to disagree with those who hold themselves out as experts, and that courts may not ‘sit as a super-legislature to weigh the wisdom of legislation,'” quoting a 1952 case.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Sotomayor condemned the decision, claiming that the Tennessee law expressly classifies on the basis of sex and transgender status, so the Constitution and settled precedent require the Court to subject it to intermediate scrutiny.”
She added that the Court retreated from “meaningful judicial review,” abandoning “transgender children and their families to political whims.”
The Biden Justice Department filed a complaint against the Tennessee law in 2023, arguing the “ban on providing certain medically necessary care to transgender minors violates the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.”
