United States v. Skrmetti

United States v. Skrmetti (Docket No. 23-477) is a pending United States Supreme Court case on whether bans on gender affirming care violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Background
On 22 March 2023, the Tennessee House of Representatives passed HB1 amending the Tennessee Code prohibiting certain forms of gender affirming care for transgender minors with a diagnosis of gender dysphoria. This includes puberty blockers and hormones if the treatment is for the purpose of allowing the minor to live in the identity that is different as to the one assigned at birth.

Upon passage of the law, the Department of Justice filed suit for an immediate order in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee Nashville Division, to prevent the law from going into effect on July 1, 2023.

The District Court granted a preliminary injunction in this case. This injunction only prevented the ban on hormones and puberty blockers from going into effect as it deemed it as infringing the "fundamental rights" of parents, while allowing for the ban on gender affirming surgery to remain.

The District Court's ruling was further appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. In a 2–1 decision, the Sixth Circuit stayed the lower court's decision to grant a preliminary injunction. Chief Judge Jeffrey Sutton wrote that the State of Tennessee is likely to succeed upon their appeal and that the right of parents to control the medical care of their children is not a fundamental right because it is not "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition" – the standard of Washington v. Glucksberg (1997). Judge Helene White concurred in part and dissented in part, arguing that the Tennessee law is "likely unconstitutional based on Plaintiffs’ theory of sex discrimination" and that she would not stay the injunction but rather narrow the scope of the injunction. However, she agreed that the "District Court abused its discretion in granting a statewide preliminary injunction".

With the ruling in the Sixth Circuit, this case was further appealed to the Supreme Court.

Supreme Court
On November 6, 2023, the United States filed a petition for the Supreme Court to hear this case on appeal. The Supreme Court granted certiorari on June 24, 2024.