Families, advocates, faith leaders, members of Congress, and more rally outside the Court in support of transgender people’s freedom to be ourselves
The Supreme Court today held oral arguments in a landmark case brought by three families and a medical provider challenging a ban on gender-affirming hormonal therapies for transgender youth. The case, U.S. v. Skrmetti, began when an initial lawsuit was first filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP on behalf of Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville and their 16-year-old transgender daughter, as well as two other plaintiff families filing anonymously and Memphis-based physician Dr. Susan Lacy. The plaintiff families and Dr. Lacy argue that the law violates the Equal Protection rights of transgender adolescents. The United States intervened, also arguing that the Tennessee law violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
“Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care is an active threat to the future my daughter deserves,” said Brian Williams, father of 16-year-old L.W. and private plaintiff in U.S. v. Skrmetti. “It infringes not only on her freedom to be herself but on our family’s love for her. We are not expecting everyone to understand everything about our family or the needs of transgender young people like our daughter. What we are asking for is for her freedom to be herself without fear. We are asking for her to be able to access the care she needs and enter adulthood knowing nothing is holding her back because of who she is.”
Oral arguments were presented before the Court today by Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project Chase Strangio, a leader in developing the legal strategy for the ACLU against waves of anti-transgender laws passed in state legislatures since 2016, including 12 legal challenges against state laws, including Tennessee’s, banning transgender youth from accessing gender-affirming medical care.
“My heart — and the heart of every transgender advocate fighting this fight — is heavy with the weight of what these laws mean for people’s everyday lives,” said Chase Strangio, Co-Director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. “But I also know that every out trans person has embraced the unknown in the name of living free from shame or the limits of other people’s expectations. By virtue of being a trans person, each of us has chosen hope over despair. And as all parents know, when your child is suffering, you are suffering. My heart aches for the parents who spent years watching their children in distress and eventually found relief in the medical care that Tennessee now overrides their judgment to ban. Whatever happens today, tomorrow and in the months and years to come, I trust that we will come together to fight for the realized promise of our Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection for all.”
In their brief defending the state’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti asked the Supreme Court to expand its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Whole Women’s Health–overturning Roe v. Wade and ending nearly fifty years of the federal right to abortion–to allow states to ban gender-affirming medical care in addition to abortion. Tennessee claims that their ban on gender-affirming care does not discriminate on the basis of sex even though it bans minors of one sex from accessing health care it allows to members of another sex.
“Today, we made a persuasive and comprehensive argument to the Supreme Court underscoring the real and deep harm of Tennessee’s discriminatory ban on medical care for transgender youth, a ban unsupported by either science or law,” said Karen L. Loewy, Senior Counsel and Director of Constitutional Law Practice for Lambda Legal. “And the harm of these bans would impact tens of thousands of transgender youth – and potentially transgender adults – across the country should the Court fail to subject Tennessee’s ban to the kind of scrutiny warranted by its discriminatory terms. No court should be allowed to disregard the overwhelming evidence supporting both the safety and efficacy of this health care for transgender youth simply because a state legislature passed a mean-spirited bill. We look forward to this Court understanding that a wholesale ban on treatments solely because they are prescribed to help transgender youth live as their authentic selves is discrimination, plain and simple. Politicians have no business interfering with health care decisions for transgender youth, particularly when they, their parents, and their doctors all agree on a medically necessary course of treatment.”
While the Justices heard arguments inside the Court, outside of the Court, hundreds of rally goers traveling from across the country gathered in support of the plaintiffs and the freedom of transgender people to be themselves. The Freedom to Be rally featured a range of speakers, including transgender youth, supportive parents, organizers, civil rights leaders, reproductive freedom advocates, faith leaders, performers, members of Congress, and more. Photography from the event will be made available by the ACLU for public use shortly.
“In this monumental and historic case, the U.S. Supreme Court has the opportunity to affirm the essential freedom and equality of all people before the law—including trans youth and their families. Every day this law inflicts further pain, injustice, and discrimination on families in Tennessee and prevents them from receiving the medical care they need,” said Lucas Cameron-Vaughn, staff attorney at the ACLU of Tennessee. “We ask the Supreme Court to commit to upholding the promises of the U.S. Constitution for all people by putting an end to Tennessee’s state-sanctioned discrimination against trans youth and their families. As we await further developments, we are committed to standing beside the brave families and doctor in this case as well as all transgender people in Tennessee, while continuing to seek equal access to justice and resisting further incursion into our freedoms by politicians seeking political gain.”
In June 2024, the Supreme Court granted a cert petition filed in the case by the United States and later granted a motion to split argument time between the U.S. Solicitor General and the attorneys representing the private plaintiffs. In addition to the briefs filed on behalf of the private plaintiffs and by the United States, plaintiffs’ arguments were also supported by a broad range of amicus briefs including from 20 state Attorneys General, 164 members of Congress, Constitutional law scholars, experts in sex discrimination, civil rights law scholars, historians, leading medical organizations, medical researchers, bioethicists, family physicians, parents of transgender youth, and transgender people who began gender-affirming medical care as minors and are now thriving adults.
“This is no ordinary medical regulation,” said Pratik Shah, head of Supreme Court & appellate practice at Akin Gump. “Tennessee is categorically depriving transgender adolescents of care that they, their parents, their doctors, and expert bodies all recognize as vital to their health and well-being. Our Constitution does not countenance such targeting for failing to adhere to the state’s preferred gender norms. The Supreme Court shouldn’t either.”
Since 2021, 24 states have enacted categorical bans on gender-affirming medical care, such as hormone therapy and puberty-suppressant medications, for treating gender dysphoria in transgender youth yet readily allow those same medications for other and similar purposes for cisgender youth. Over 100,000 transgender people under 18 now live in a state with a ban on their health care. Statewide restrictions further limiting access for transgender people regardless of age are active in Florida, South Carolina, Idaho, and have been proposed at the federal level by the incoming Trump administration.
A decision is expected in U.S. v. Skrmetti in the spring or early summer of 2025.