Supreme Court Could End Up Deciding The Fate Of Child Sex Change Bans

• The Sixth Circuit’s decision to allow Tennessee’s ban on sex change procedures for minors to take effect last week signals the issue could soon be heading to the Supreme Court.
• If another circuit court comes to a different conclusion than the Sixth Circuit in one of the many pending lawsuits against such bans, “it would go up to the Supreme Court on a petition for emergency appeal,” Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
• The American Civil Liberties Union has filed lawsuits over child sex change bans in multiple states, including Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kentucky.

A federal appeals court’s decision to allow Tennessee’s child sex change ban to take effect could mean the Supreme Court will soon be asked to weigh in on the issue.

After midnight on July 8th, the Sixth Circuit paused a lower court’s injunction on Tennessee’s ban on providing children with sex change surgeries, puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and “any drug or device” intended for the same purposes. With lawsuits challenging similar bans popping up throughout the country and multiple cases now being appealed in the circuit courts, Sarah Parshall Perry, senior legal fellow at Heritage’s Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies, told the Daily Caller News Foundation “there’s no question” the issue will end up before the Supreme Court.

“These are emergency motions where these judges are having to determine whether a state’s interest in protecting the welfare of children outweighs a parents’ interest in getting experimental medical treatment,” Perry explained.

If another circuit court determines, contrary to what the Sixth Circuit just found, that a parent has a right to “experimental medical care” for their children, Perry said “it would go up to the Supreme Court on a petition for emergency appeal.”

The Supreme Court, she noted, has “never held that there is an unfettered right to get experimental medical treatment for one’s children.”

Gene Hamilton, general counsel and vice president at America First Legal (AFL), told the DCNF AFL is “optimistic that other courts will follow the Sixth Circuit’s lead in rejecting attempts by the radical left to accomplish through the courts what they cannot achieve legislatively.”

“[T]he [Sixth Circuit] Court rightly held that the plaintiffs were not likely to prevail on their due process and equal protection claims — which were novel and rooted in political activism rather than the Constitution,” Hamilton said. “The Supreme Court has not extended either area of law to cover procedures and treatments that amount to genital mutilation or chemical castration of children, and we suspect that it will not do so absent an unprecedented court-packing by the Biden regime.”

The ACLU has filed lawsuits over child sex change bans in Texas, Alabama, Idaho, Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kentucky. Florida’s ban was also challenged by four families backed by multiple LGBT activist groups.

Obama-appointed Eastern District of Arkansas Judge Jay Moody struck down Arkansas’ law in June. Northern District of Florida Judge Robert L. Hinkle, a Clinton-appointee, also granted a preliminary injunction in June preventing Florida’s ban from being enforced against the plaintiffs who sued, asserting in his opinion that “gender identity is real.”

The case against Florida’s law will soon be appealed in the 11th Circuit, Perry told the DCNF.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuits often argue “gender-affirming care” is “medically necessary” to prevent mental health problems like anxiety, depression, self-harm and suicide.

Contrary to the opinions issued by the Florida and Tennessee trial courts, Perry said there is “no data to support the fact that this is life saving care.”

“In fact, suicidal idealation likely to remain after these particular hormone or surgical interventions,” Perry told the DCNF. “That is, behind all of this, one of the great tragedies in this push towards gender-altering treatments that we’re seeing in these federal trial courts across the country.”