USSC upholds Tennessee ban on gender affirming treatments on minors

Apparently a convoluted 6-3 decision with multiple layers

The end result is that the 26 states who are banning various medical treatments such as puberty blockers, hormone supplements, and life altering surgeries are eventually going to be able to see these laws go into effect. But as it always seems to be in the Roberts court, this was not exactly a strong ruling. Unfortunately this was not on par with the United Kingdom decision, where that court made the common sense ruling that being transgender was not a defined sex and could not be used to argue and extra classification of equal protection under the law. The UK courts suggested (properly) that for existing laws to include transgenderism, that transgenderism needed to be added into new laws.

That being stated, this was a 6-3 decision coming down pretty much as expected. Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch, and Coney Barrett were in the majority, while Kagan, Sotomayer, and Brown Jackson were the three who dissented. Alito did not agree with portions of the majority position and there were several different concurrences written. I have not dug into what Alito disagreed with.

The main problem here is that the lawsuit brought against the law relied largely on the claim that there was an equal protection argument. That if a minor boy could be provided with testosterone and such, that a minor girl should also be allowed testosterone (and visa versa with estrogen). The court rejected this largely because the ban was specific to age (and age is a valid reason to ban certain procedures) and based on use (meaning whether it was being used to treat a physical ailment or whether it was being used as an elective for purposes of gender transitioning). The idea that it was an equal protection against males and females was always a loser, but it really was the best they had.

The underlying determination as to whether or not these treatments are good or bad was certainly addressed, but it was never the argument that the plaintiffs used to file the suit. That appeared to be an argument that was almost conceded by the plaintiffs based on the lack of real medical or scientific evidence that these medical treatments provide more good than bad. These are largely being thought of as experimental procedures and from what we know, there are plenty of potential side effects that can far outweigh any benefits. The court does acknowledge this in the decision, but it was never the driving force.

Now the question is whether or not other people file similar suits in other states can still find district court judges willing to ignore the precedent and temporarily put a hold on these laws, possibly suggesting "differences" between the laws. We have seen similar behavior on what appeared to be USSC precedent on many topic, most famously voter ID laws which seemed to be almost continuously being argued somewhere in court for quite some time before most of the critics have given up.