TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Julia Wilburn on Apr 21, 2023

Three transgender children and their parents sued the state yesterday over a new law that bans gender-affirming care for minors, the Associated Press reports. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and other groups in federal court in Nashville. It claims the Tennessee law, which is scheduled to go into effect July 1, violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause because it allows the banned medical treatments when they are used to treat conditions other than gender dysphoria. The law prohibits health care providers from providing hormone treatments or surgeries for transgender youth where the purpose is to allow the child to express a gender identity “inconsistent with the immutable characteristics of the reproductive system that define the minor as male or female.”