A Tennessee law banning transgender surgeries and medications for minors is constitutional, according to the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS).
SCOTUS ruled 6-3 on Wednesday that the law wasn’t discriminatory. SCOTUS’s decision will have major implications for other states, including Alabama, with similar bans.
Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Tennessee at the Supreme Court.
In his concurring opinion, SCOTUS Associate Justice Clarence Thomas cited evidence uncovered by Marshall in his defense of Alabama’s ban that was reported on extensively by 1819 News.
“At the same time, the number of children identifying as transgender has surged, and medical professionals have increasingly expressed doubts over the quality of evidence supporting the use of puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgery to treat them,” Thomas said in his opinion.
Marshall said in a statement on the ruling, “Until a few years ago, the notion of providing sex-change procedures to children was practically unthinkable,”
“So was the idea that the judiciary is the best branch to sort through the evidence and decide that kids suffering from gender-related psychological distress must be allowed to take powerful hormones that risk permanently changing their bodies and leaving them sterilized. I applaud the Supreme Court for recognizing that state governments have the authority and responsibility to regulate medicine in the face of medical interest groups that have placed radical gender ideology over evidence-based medicine and patient welfare," Marshall said on Wednesday.
He continued, “The political and legal scandal Alabama uncovered underscores why the Constitution places the authority to regulate medicine with the States, not with activist organizations like WPATH or their friends at the ACLU.”
“Laws like Alabama’s and Tennessee’s are unfortunately very necessary to protect vulnerable children from so-called medical ‘standards’ that were created for the express purpose of ‘affecting policy’ and ‘winning lawsuits,’ not to accurately reflect the science or help children. We are glad that the Supreme Court has upheld these laws, and glad that President Trump’s administration is also taking steps to rid medicine of harmful gender ideology. I look forward to our partnership to root out these radical policies that are directly harming our children and their future,” Marshall added.
Governor Kay Ivey said, “SCOTUS just delivered a big win for America’s children!”
“Alabama stood firmly behind Tennessee. In addition to work by (Marshall), I was proud to sign my name on to a brief in support,” Ivey added. “In states like Alabama and Tennessee, we protect our children!”
Ivey signed the Vulnerable Child Compassion and Protection Act into law in 2022, which prohibits doctors in Alabama from performing transgender operations or prescribing cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers to individuals under 19.
State Sen. Shay Shelnutt (R-Trussville), the law’s sponsor, said in a statement to 1819 News, “Experimenting on our children with dangerous drugs and irreversible procedures is illegal. That’s common sense.”
“Alabama will continue to fight against the radical left’s agenda, protect the innocence of our children, and defend parents’ rights across America,” Shelnutt said.
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Auburn) said the ruling was a “BIG WIN for common sense and our children.”
Katherine Robertson, Marshall’s chief counsel, called the ruling a “historic victory.”
“We are incredibly proud that Alabama’s brief and findings were cited in the Court’s reasoning. Thousands of hours of work by our team paid off. Years from now, it will be hard to believe that our society ever allowed this type of experimentation on children,” Robertson said.
Recently unsealed documents in a lawsuit against Alabama's ban revealed the Biden administration lobbied against including minimum age requirements in the World Professional Association for Transgender Health's (WPATH) standards of care for surgeries.
Marshall's brief in defense of the Tennessee law heavily emphasized WPATH and its collusion with the Biden administration's Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to promote irreversible, non-evidence-based interventions.
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