Protecting Trans Health Care: Battling Gender-Affirming Care Bans in the Courts – Health Care in Motion

Last month, in between issuing decisions about mifepristone, EMTALA, Chevron deference, and presidential immunity, the Supreme Court of the United States also agreed to review a case that could upend transgender access to health care: U.S. v. Skrmetti. In the coming term, Skrmetti will give the Court an opportunity to decide whether a state law banning transgender minors from accessing medically necessary gender-affirming care violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Skrmetti is one of 17 lawsuits challenging gender-affirming care bans for minors across the country—seven of which were brought in state court under state law. This means that while a Supreme Court decision about transgender health could resolve the equal protection issue for the 10 cases (including Skrmetti) that were filed in federal court, it won’t necessarily be the final word on the seven other lawsuits that rely on state statutory and constitutional law. But a Supreme Court decision about whether the federal Equal Protection Clause prohibits discrimination against transgender people as a class could send shockwaves across other areas of federal nondiscrimination law, with potentially dire consequences for the transgender community.

Read on for a closer look at the history and landscape of gender-affirming care bans, the legal challenges to these bans that have been brought across the country, and what lies ahead.

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