• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
The Supreme Court is pictured in Washington Oct. 21, 2024. The nation's highest court is scheduled to hear Dec. 4 a challenge to a Tennessee state law banning certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures for minors who identify as transgender, the high court's first major step toward weighing in on the controversial issue. (OSV News photo/Kevin Mohatt, Reuters)

Supreme Court gets set for oral arguments over state’s gender transition ban for minors

December 2, 2024
By Kate Scanlon
OSV News
Filed Under: Health Care, News, Supreme Court, World News

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

WASHINGTON (OSV News) — The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear Dec. 4 a challenge to a Tennessee state law banning certain types of medical or surgical gender reassignment procedures for minors who identify as transgender, the high court’s first major step toward weighing in on the controversial issue.

The high court agreed earlier this year to hear United States v. Skrmetti, the Biden administration’s challenge to a law in Tennessee restricting gender transition treatments including puberty blockers for minors. Previously, a federal appeals court in Cincinnati allowed such laws in both Tennessee and Kentucky to take effect after they had been blocked by lower courts. The Supreme Court did not take up a separate appeal concerning Kentucky’s law.

At least 25 Republican-led states have adopted laws restricting or banning gender reassignment surgery or hormonal treatments for minors, although not all of those bans are currently in effect amid legal challenges, according to data from the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ+ policy group. A ruling in United States v. Skrmetti could potentially have a significant impact on whether those laws are enforced or prohibited.

Supporters of prohibitions on gender transition surgeries or hormonal treatments for minors who identify as transgender say such restrictions will prevent them from making irreversible decisions as children that they may later come to regret as adults. Critics of such bans argue that preventing those interventions could cause other harm to minors, such as mental health issues or physical self-harm.

The question at issue in the case before the Supreme Court is whether Tennessee’s law, Senate Bill 1, violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

In an Oct. 8 brief filed to the high court, respondents in the case including Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti wrote, “While the government is free to favor its transition-first, ask-questions-later approach, the Constitution does not bind Tennessee to that same choice. This case involves a routine exercise of state power that touches on a controversial topic. But not every contentious social issue calls for a constitutional override.”

But in a friend-of-the-court brief, also known as an amicus brief, the American Psychological Association alongside other mental health organizations wrote that they are “deeply concerned about the mental health effects of banning gender-affirming medical interventions.”

“The Tennessee law at issue also threatens medical providers’ ability to engage in beneficent clinical practices, placing psychologists and other mental health providers in a compromising position in which abiding by the law could require them to violate their ethical code of conduct to pursue the best medically accepted treatment options for their patients,” the APA amicus brief said.

Medical providers in a number of countries have recently re-evaluated the application of gender identity interventions in children. Earlier this year, the National Health Service (NHS) in England announced it would no longer automatically prescribe puberty-suppressing hormones to child patients at its gender identity clinics. Other countries including Denmark, Finland, France, Norway and Sweden have moved to limit such treatments or otherwise prevent overdiagnosis of gender dysphoria.

England’s move followed an interim report by Dr. Hilary Cass, a former president of the Royal College of Pediatrics and Child Health, whom the NHS appointed in 2020 to conduct an independent review of its gender identity services. The Cass report found “gaps in the evidence base” for puberty blockers, which arrest the onset of puberty by inhibiting sex hormones.

In guidance on health care policy and practices released in March 2023, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Doctrine outlined the church’s opposition to interventions that “involve the use of surgical or chemical techniques that aim to exchange the sex characteristics of a patient’s body for those of the opposite sex or for simulations thereof.”

“Any technological intervention that does not accord with the fundamental order of the human person as a unity of body and soul, including the sexual difference inscribed in the body, ultimately does not help but, rather, harms the human person,” the document states.

A 2022 study by the UCLA Williams Institute found that there are approximately 1.6 million people in the U.S. who identify as transgender, with nearly half of that population between the ages of 13 and 24.

Read More Supreme Court

Mahmoud v. Taylor: A Supreme Court victory for parents, freedom

Supreme Court rules states can deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood

Supreme Court upholds Tennessee’s gender transition ban for minors

Supreme Court takes up appeal from N.J. faith-based pregnancy centers

‘Public’ does not equal ‘state’ or ‘government’

High court sends Catholic groups’ challenge to N.Y. abortion-coverage mandate back to state courts

Copyright © 2024 OSV News

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Kate Scanlon

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Conference of Major Superiors of Men Men’s religious leaders confront change with fraternity and faith

  • St. Bernardine Choir celebrates 50 years of song, spirit and community

  • Radio Interview: The true story of ‘Xavier Rynne’

  • Massacre ‘of faithful in the house of God’ in Congolese Catholic church leaves 43 dead

  • Sister Rose Sylvia Lindner, S.S.N.D., dies at 91

| Latest Local News |

Sister Rita Ann Naughton, I.H.M., dies at 88

St. Bernardine Choir celebrates 50 years of song, spirit and community

Grillo Family Reflection Space

Loyola University Maryland receives $1 million gift supporting aspiring educators, creation of reflection space

Sister Miriam Jansen, former director of international programs at Notre Dame of Maryland, dies at 86

Conference of Major Superiors of Men

Men’s religious leaders confront change with fraternity and faith

| Latest World News |

burch

Brian Burch confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See

JUBILEE-YOUTH-VIGIL

Pope Leo urges youth to find hope, friendship in Christ in uncertain times

Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, Rep. Veronica Escobar

Amid shift in public opinion on immigration, Catholic advocates praise bipartisan attempt at reform

Planned Parenthood defunding remains in question amid legal challenges

UNESCO-EXIT-CATHOLIC-SITES

Experts see US UNESCO exit as blow to historic preservation for churches, other sites

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Brian Burch confirmed as U.S. ambassador to the Holy See
  • Pope Leo urges youth to find hope, friendship in Christ in uncertain times
  • Our Lady of the Snows: An unlikely patron in August
  • Amid shift in public opinion on immigration, Catholic advocates praise bipartisan attempt at reform
  • A Small Gift on a Cloudy Day
  • Planned Parenthood defunding remains in question amid legal challenges
  • Experts see US UNESCO exit as blow to historic preservation for churches, other sites
  • Thousands visit Blessed Frassati’s remains in Rome for Jubilee of Youth
  • Young teen’s relics a reminder for pilgrims that holiness ‘is not impossible’

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en