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The Supreme Court Ruling in the Skrmetti Case Should Have Taken Sex Discrimination Into Account: 5 Things To Know

Supreme Court.

Equality Now

The Supreme Court Ruling in the Skrmetti Case Should Have Taken Sex Discrimination Into Account: 5 Things To Know

A quick recap:

  • The Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban, weakening equal protections.
  • Tennessee’s law denies care based on sex assigned at birth, despite claims it doesn’t.
  • The Supreme Court decision and Tenessee’s law violates international human rights standards on health and non-discrimination.
  • To reach a decision, the Court revived harmful legal reasoning.
  • Without stronger protections, discrimination can be hidden in neutral language.

On June 18, 2025, the US Supreme Court issued its decision in United States v. Skrmetti, upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors. The Court held that Tennessee’s law does not rely on a sex-based classification and therefore does not warrant heightened judicial scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution. The decision sidestepped the central role sex plays in the Tennessee law, effectively signaling that states may target gender-affirming care for transgender youth without triggering the constitutional protections typically afforded in such cases.

The Court accepted Tennessee’s claim that the law at issue merely regulates “based on age” and “medical use,” not on sex or transgender status. But this framing misrepresents how the law functions in practice: access to treatment is determined entirely by a patient’s sex assigned at birth. It’s not the treatment itself that is restricted, but who is seeking it and for what purpose.

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