Supreme Court ruling on transgender youth medical care leaves broader legal questions unresolved
Washington – Supreme Court ruling that Hadee Tennessee Law The prohibition of some sponsorship of sexually transformed youth has left various legal questions open, even if other laws aimed at people on the basis of sexual identity, including those that involve the prohibition of sports and military service, are heading towards judges.
This means that although sexually transformed rights activists face a setback, the ruling does not control how other cases appear in the end.
“This decision only sheds little sheds on how to analyze or judge the majority of judges on other cases,” said Shannon Minter, a lawyer at the National Center for LGBTQ.
It is worth noting that the court, which has a majority of 6-3 governorate, did not address the main issue of whether these laws should be reviewed automatically by the courts with a more skeptical eye, an approach known as “the growing scrutiny”. In practice, this means that the laws related to transgender people will have to wipe a higher legal tape to be supported.
Judges exceeded the answer to this question because the court found that the Tennessee State Law, which prohibits the gender transition, did not distinguish against the transgender people at all.
But it is possible that other cases will directly arouse this case, which means that a close attention will be paid to what the judges said in various written opinions, as well as what they did not say.
Some cases may not manage the condition of the transgender. For example, the court can determine that some laws – such as those that prohibit sexually transformed girls from participating in girls’ sports or restrictions imposed on people who use toilets that are compatible with their sexual identity – are a form of sexual discrimination.
There are cases throughout the country in a variety of cases related to traffic that can reach the Supreme Court at some point.
“There are countless examples of discrimination against sexually converts by the government on their way through the lower courts,” said Chis Strangio, a lawyer in the American Civil Liberties Union.
President Donald Trump has banned sexually converting in the army, which is the court Already To go into effect, it is one of these possible cases.
There are also many appeals currently suspended in the Supreme Court, which involves challenges in the government sports embargo. One of these cases includes a ban in West Virginia, the participants in sexually transformed girls in girls in middle schools, high schools and colleges. Court in 2023 The law was prevented from imposing it Against a 12 -year -old girl.
Only this week, Ruling on a federal judge The Trump administration cannot prevent transgressive and non -bilateral Americans from placing the “X” mark as the identity of their gender on passports.
Reading future cases signals
Once the 6-3 ruling was issued, the experts were reading tea papers in the opinion of the majority of judges John Roberts in addition to the three compatible opinions and opposition opinions.
The bottom line is that only three of the six conservative judges in the majority said explicitly that they do not believe that transgender people are a “suspect category”, which would lead to an increasing scrutiny of the laws that target them.
These judges are Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alto, and Amy Kony Barrett.
In a simultaneous opinion, Barrett pointed out that the court should not play a major role in reviewing whether legislators can issue laws that affect transgender people. She gave access to parties and a gym as examples.
She added that the legislative bodies “have many reasons for developing policies in these areas” and laws must be supported “as long as the statute is a rational way to follow up on a legitimate end.”
In his opinion, Alto said that the court should have decided whether the laws related to the transgender were worth the increasing scrutiny.
“This important question has divided the courts of appeal, and if we do not face it now, we will certainly be required to do so soon,” he wrote.
In his opinion, the transgender people are not from the suspected class, partly due to the fact that they were “not exposed to the date of discrimination” along the lines of other groups, and the court previously recognized special protection, including blacks and women.
Carrie Sevirino, a conservative legal activist, said that Alto was right to say that the court should decide this case. She added that three of the majority that launched their hands were “an encouraging sign that the court understands the risk of throwing the door open to the new protected classes.”
But Roberts and his conservative colleagues, Neil Jorm, and Brett Cavano, said anything about their opinions. Gorsuch is particularly noticeable, as it has composed the sudden court ruling of 2020 that protecting the extended discrimination to homosexual and transgender people under the seventh Federal Employment Law.
The court did not say, to the disappointment of some conservatives, that the ruling of 2020 is limited to the context of the work, although it ruled on Wednesday that it does not apply to the specific medical care issue that was raised in the Tennessee case.
With all the three liberal judges who say they believe that the increasing scrutiny should be applied, the civil rights lawyer who represents the transgender prosecutors still in theory see a way to victory in future issues.
“The court has left the possibility that the increasing scrutiny will advance,” Strangio said.
