Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti released a statement Saturday morning, hours after the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling granting the state of Tennessee’s emergency motion for a stay of a June 28 preliminary injunction from a federal district judge that temporarily prohibited the full implementation of a law enacted in March 2023. The law, Prohibition on Medical Procedures Performed on Minors Related to Sexual Identity, was originally scheduled to go into effect on July 1.
“The case is far from over, but this is a big win. The court of appeals lifted the injunction, meaning the law can be fully enforced, and recognized that Tennessee is likely to win the constitutional argument and the case,” Skrmetti said in a statement released by his office.
The law now goes into full effect on July 8, one week after its originally scheduled July 1 effective date.
“Tennessee enacted a law that prohibits healthcare providers from performing gender-affirming surgeries and administering hormones or puberty blockers to transgender minors. After determining that the law likely violated the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses, the district court facially enjoined the law’s enforcement as to hormones and puberty blockers and applied the injunction to all people in the State. Tennessee appealed and moved for an emergency stay of the district court’s order. Because Tennessee is likely to succeed on its appeal of the preliminary injunction, we grant the stay,” Chief Judge Sutton wrote in the Sixth Circuit Court’s decision.
“In March 2023, Tennessee enacted the Prohibition on Medical Procedures Performed on Minors Related to Sexual Identity. It was scheduled to go into effect on July 1, 2023. Seeking to “protect[] minors from physical and emotional harm,” the legislature identified several concerns about recent treatments being offered by the medical profession for children with gender dysphoria. It was concerned that some treatments for gender dysphoria “can lead to the minor becoming irreversibly sterile, having increased risk of disease and illness, or suffering adverse and sometimes fatal psychological consequences. It was concerned that the long-term costs of these treatments remain unknown and outweigh any near-term benefits because they are ‘ experimental in nature and not supported by high-quality, long-term medical studies.’ And it noted that other helpful, less risky, and non-irreversible treatments remain available,” Chief Judge Sutton continued:
These findings convinced the legislature to ban certain medical treatments for minors with gender dysphoria. A healthcare provider may not “administer or offer to administer” “a medical procedure” to a minor “for the purpose of” either “[e]nabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex,” or “[t]reating purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.”
Prohibited medical procedures include “[s]urgically removing, modifying, altering, or entering into tissues, cavities, or organs” and “[p]rescribing, administering, or dispensing any puberty blocker or hormone.” The Act contains two relevant exceptions. It permits the use of these medical procedures to treat congenital defects, precocious puberty, disease, or physical injury. And it has a “continuing care” exception until March 31, 2024, which permits healthcare providers to continue administering a long-term treatment, say hormone therapy, that began before the Act’s effective date.
A lawsuit was subsequently brought in federal court seeking to invalidate the new law on the grounds that it violated Constitutional due process and equal protection guarantees, as Judge Sutton noted:
Three transgender minors, their parents, and a doctor sued several state officials, claiming the Act violated the United States Constitution’s guarantees of due process and equal protection. The plaintiffs challenged the Act’s prohibitions on hormone therapy and its surgery prohibitions, but they did not challenge its private right of action. They moved for a preliminary injunction to prevent those features of the Act from going into effect on July 1, 2023.
On June 28, the district court granted the motion in part. It concluded that the challengers lacked standing to contest the ban on surgeries but could challenge the ban on hormones and puberty blockers. As to due process, the court found that the Act infringes the parents’ “fundamental right to direct the medical care of their children.” As to equal protection, the court reasoned (1) that the Act improperly discriminates on the basis of sex and (2) that transgender persons constitute a quasi-suspect class and that the State could not satisfy the necessary justifications that come with this designation. The district court concluded that the Act was facially unconstitutional (with the exception of the surgery and private enforcement provisions), and it issued a statewide injunction against its enforcement. Tennessee appealed. It unsuccessfully sought a stay in the district court and moves for a stay here.
Read the full opinion here:
The case is L.W. v. Skrmetti, No. 23-5600, in Federal District Court of Middle Tennessee.
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Michael Patrick Leahy is the CEO and Editor-in-Chief of The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network.
Photo “Tennessee AG Skrmetti” by Tennessee AG Skrmetti.
