DOJ drops challenge to Tennessee's gender care ban for minors
July 22 (UPI) -- The Justice Department has dismissed a Biden-era lawsuit challenging Tennessee's law banning gender-affirming care for minors, as the Trump administration continues to attack the rights and medical care of transgender Americans.
Attorney General Pam Bondi announced that her department's Civil Rights Division dismissed the lawsuit in a statement Monday that said the Justice Department "does not believe challenging Tennessee's law serves the public interest."
Gender-affirming care includes a range of therapies, including psychological, behavioral and medical interventions, with surgeries for minors being exceedingly rare. According to a recent Harvard study, cisgender minors and adults were far more likely to undergo analogous gender-affirming surgeries than their transgender counterparts.
Every major American medical association supports gender-affirming care for both adults and minors, including the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Medical Association, the largest national medical association.
Despite the support of the medical community and evidence of its efficacy, gender-affirming care and this marginalized community continue to be targeted by conservatives and Republicans with legislation.
Tennessee enacted Senate Bill 1 in March 2023 to prohibit healthcare professionals from prescribing puberty blockers or hormones to minors to treat gender dysphoria, which attracted a lawsuit from the Justice Department under President Joe Biden, arguing the law violated the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause, as all other minors continued to have access to the same procedures and treatments.
The conservative movement targeting the healthcare of transgender minors has since gained a supporter in the White House with the re-election of President Donald Trump.
Since returning to power, Trump has implemented an agenda targeting transgender Americans, including directing the federal government to recognize only two sexes determined at "conception," restricting gender-affirming care for youth and banning transgender Americans from the military.
Last month, the conservative-leaning Supreme Court ruled 6-3 against the Biden administration's complaint to overturn the Tennessee law. The ruling fell along ideological lines, with the conservative justices voting for the law to stand. The liberal justices dissented.
"By retreating from meaningful review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims," Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in her dissent.
"Tennessee's ban applies no matter what a minor's parents and doctors think, with no regard for the severity of the minor's mental health conditions or the extent to which treatment is medically necessary for an individual child."
Bondi on Monday said the Supreme Court made "the right decision." Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division said that by dismissing the lawsuit, they "undid one of the injustices the Biden administration inflicted upon the country."
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