KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Tennessee's law banning gender-affirming medical care for minors on Saturday, overturning a lower court judge's ruling blocking parts of the law from taking effect.
“Given the high stakes of these nascent policy deliberations—the long-term health of children facing gender dysphoria—sound government usually benefits from more rather than less debate, more rather than less input, more rather than less consideration of fair-minded policy approaches," wrote Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton in his opinion for the court.
Judge Amul Thapar, appointed by former President Donald Trump, signed onto the Chief Judge's opinion. Senior Judge Helene White, appointed by former President Bill Clinton, dissented, in part, with the court's ruling.
The court's opinion relied heavily on the Supreme Court's opinion from last year in the Dobbs case, overturning Roe v. Wade. In his 12-page opinion, Judge Sutton cited Dobbs nine times.
The ruling upholds Tennessee's law, passed earlier this year, which makes it illegal for providers to care "to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's biological sex."
The law prevents minors who identify as a gender different from their sex assigned at birth from getting care in Tennessee to affirm their gender.
"Politicians deciding medical care and best practices for medical care is uncharted territory," said Aly Chapman, the East Tennessee chair of the Tennessee Equality Project.
Chapman said her son identifies as a transgender man. She said removing the option for gender-affirming medical care for minors can have deadly consequences.
"There's nothing more powerful than being your own person and people recognizing that you are your own person in the way that you are," Chapman said.
The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled a similar law is unconstitutional. The Supreme Court may hear the next challenge to this law.