Statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti
NEWS RELEASE
For further information, contact: Mark Simpliciano, Co-President, markasimpliciano@gmail.com; or Julie Wolff, Co-President, julie@jwolfflaw.com
Statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s Decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti
For immediate release June 30, 2025
SAN DIEGO – The Tom Homann LGBTQ+ Law Association is deeply disappointed by the Supreme Court decision issued June 18, 2025, in United States v. Skrmetti, in which the Court held that the state of Tennessee may target transgender youth by banning gender-affirming care for minors.
The ban, like those in 25 other states, prohibits healthcare providers from prescribing, administering or dispensing puberty blockers or hormones to any minor for the purpose of treating gender dysphoria or enabling the minor to affirm and live as a gender identity different than that assigned at birth. Tennessee seeks to punish doctors for providing proper medical treatments to transgender youth and removes these medical options for transgender youth at a critical time in their lives.
The ban expressly conditions the availability of medications on the patient’s sex – prohibiting the use of puberty blockers and hormones by transgender or nonbinary minors for gender-affirming care, but allowing their use for any other purposes. Tennessee has no problem allowing hormone treatment and puberty blockers for minors as long as the minors seek such treatment only to affirm their gender identified at birth. To use one of Justice Sotomayor’s examples, a teen who is distressed by newly developing facial hair may receive hormone treatment in Tennessee if the teen was identified female at birth, but not if the teen was identified male at birth.
This should have subjected the law to intermediate scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. If intermediate scrutiny were applied, the law likely would have been struck down as unconstitutional. But the Supreme Court’s majority held that the ban did not discriminate on the basis of sex or gender identity and upheld it under the much lower standard of rational-basis review.
As Justice Sonia Sotomayor succinctly explained in her dissent: “The majority subjects a law that plainly discriminates on the basis of sex to mere rational-basis review. By retreating from meaningful judicial review exactly where it matters most, the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims. In sadness, I dissent.”
The Court’s majority tries to cast the Tennessee ban as sex-neutral by emphasizing that no minor – male or female – may be administered puberty blockers or hormones to treat gender dysphoria, while minors of any sex may be administered puberty blockers or hormones for other purposes. But this same argument was rejected nearly 60 years ago in Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1, 9 (1967), in which the Supreme Court struck down bans on interracial marriage despite the argument that such bans supposedly were race-neutral because nobody was permitted to marry outside their race, while everybody was permitted to marry within their race.
Only five years ago, the Supreme Court held, in Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644, 660 (2020), that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”
In refusing to recognize that the Tennessee ban targets transgender youth based on their sex and refusing to apply intermediate scrutiny to the law, the Supreme Court takes an end-run around critical constitutional protections – endangering an already vulnerable group and opening the door to further discrimination.
The ruling in Skrmetti provides another stark reminder that well-settled legal standards are now subject to attack by the Supreme Court’s conservative majority. The Supreme Court is chipping away at the promise of equal protection guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment.
THLA opposes the erosion of human rights, civil rights and all forms of discrimination. We will continue to work for equality for all, including our transgender and nonbinary community. We will resist and persist.
About THLA: The Tom Homann LGBTQ+ Law Association is dedicated to the advancement of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues throughout California and the nation, as well as the protection of our communities. We are the place for San Diego’s LGBTQ+ and ally legal professionals to network, build friendships and develop their careers. THLA members are also committed to establishing and maintaining personal connections with the local law student community. Through our successful mentor program, we provide encouragement, guidance, insight, and friendship.
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