Court’s gender-affirming care ruling will impair all sex-based rights, say critics

People hold signs outside the supreme court as it considers a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors, on 4 December 2024. Photograph: Benoît Tessier/Reuters

The US supreme court on Wednesday ruled to uphold a Tennessee ban on gender-affirming care for minors – a decision, legal analysts say, that is sure to have a sweeping impact not only on transgender and non-binary individuals across the US, but on anybody who wants to argue that they have been discriminated against on the basis of their sex.

Forty per cent of trans people between the ages of 13 and 17 live in the 27 states that have so far enacted bans or policies that restrict youths’ access to gender-affirming care. Although advocates have launched more than a dozen lawsuits over the bans, most remain in effect. Wednesday’s decision in the case, United States v Skrmetti, may pave the way for the rest to take effect.