Big US legal case decided by Supreme Court - US v Skrmetti

[AtoC]

It's nice to know that our US cousins are gradually catching up.

A few hours ago the US Supreme Court issued its judgment in this case. It was all over Twitter (I still can't get used to calling it "X").

@Britinme also made a quick post about it on another thread earlier today:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5312100-womens-rights-general-conversations-thread-10?reply=145087328

Although the US is really quite a long way behind the UK on this issue in some respects, this ruling is really quite big news. It comes from the Supreme Court so all the States must follow this ruling.

It's quite a long story but, essentially, this is the US version of the Court of Appeal case, Bell v Tavistock NHS Trust back in 2021.

However, they went much further than our Court of Appeal.

In Bell v Tavistock ([2021] EWCA Civ 1363) the Court of Appeal said that children over the age of 16 or who were younger and Gillick competent could be given puberty blockers.

However, NHS England then decided anyway to discontinue using puberty blockers for children in 2024 (apart from some "trials") following the Cass Review.

The situation in the US came about due to a case from Tennessee. They passed a law that said it was illegal to provide puberty blockers to children under the age of 18.

A company that provides these puberty blockers (along with the parents of three children) then brought a claim against Tennessee (the Attorney General of Tennessee is John Skrmetti, hence the name of the case).

The case eventually worked its way up to the Supreme Court which is where we arrive at today.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/23-4772cp3.pdf

It's a long read (118 pages).

The judgment was divided and there were a number of different judgments given (even when they agreed with the majority opinion).

But, in one sense, the US are now ahead of us. It would appear that laws banning even "trials" of puberty blockers on children are now fine in the US.

Of course, newspapers like the Guardian described it as "Ruling is devastating loss for trans rights supporters in case that could set precedent for dozens of other lawsuits"

Good news. I've been wondering when the judgement was due.

Was this the case where loads of unfavourable (to the PB manufacturer/trans cause) evidence surfaced during the discovery phase?

Link doesn't work for me.

Sorry, which one?

Sorry, I've just tried it from my Mumsnet link and, you're right, it doesn't work.

If you go to this page:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?filename=/docket/docketfiles/html/public/23-477.html

and scroll down then there is a link to the opinion near the bottom dated Jun 18 2025

'this ruling is really quite big news. It comes from the Supreme Court so all the States must follow this ruling.'

Not sure this is true? It's Tennessee and will make it easier for other States to follow suit, but I don't think compulsory. Happy to be corrected.

In any case, great news. Thanks for sharing OP.

Yes, you're right in that it isn't compulsory, (in fact I believe that California has already come out and said that they won't be doing this any time soon). I didn't make myself too clear in my OP - sorry about that. If there are similar legal challenges in other states then the courts will have to abide by the Supreme Court ruling.

However, there are something like 24 states where they have similar laws and there are similar legal challenges going on in these other states as well.

The Supreme Court opinion basically says that where States want to introduce this ban then they can.

I can imagine that States like California, Oregon and Washington would never dream of introducing legislation like this (and, under the US system, that's their prerogative).

If you want a brief summary of how the case came about, the surrounding context in the US, and what to look forward to, this is a handy summary:

https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/5357653-supreme-court-backs-gender-clinic-shutdown/

Yes its the one that all the wpath files came from

It was also the case that got Chase Strangio, on behalf of the genderists, to confirm that "gender affirming" medical treatments have no impact on the suicide of children and young people.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/aclu-attorney-confesses-transgender-suicide-claim-is-a-myth

Thank you. I knew one of the USA cases had blown the bloody doors off. I couldn’t remember which one.

Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. That's a real step in the right direction!

If it pisses off the Guardian the ruling is a double bonus. 😁
Well done SC USA. 👏👍

The dissenting opinion was depressing though, know how many people actually believe this - especially the final quoted line below.

It's like hearing people not only defend lobotomies but argue that you're causing harm by refusing to lobotomise someone (which used to be considered a legitimate and helpful medical treatment).

The three liberal justices - Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented from the ruling.

Sotomayor, who wrote the dissent and also read it from the bench to emphasise her strong disagreement, wrote that the ban does lead to "medical discrimination on the basis of sex" and that in its ruling "the Court abandons transgender children and their families to political whims".

"[The Court] authorizes, without second thought, untold harm to transgender children and the parents and families who love them," Sotomayor wrote.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crr7ej97y0eo

Everyone used to think it was progressives with their rationality and conservatives with their religion.

How times change.

I'm not optimistic that it will make a huge difference there. Views like this are so deeply tied to political sides in America that a large chunk of the population will simply lump this ruling with the right-wing side like all the anti-abortion, homophobic stuff and they won't think anymore about it. It being a trump government amplifies this even more.

What has happened in the UK recently has happened under a 'liberal' government which is far far more powerful. It's also far more grass roots here, individual women and small organisations taking on governments and institutions. In America it feels more top down. Decisions made with a swipe of trumps pen.

The left hate him (for plenty of good reasons) and with that modern tribalism where every 'side' has to fall in line with their 'team'. Anyone who steps out is a heretic. It's a macrocosm of the whole T movement. Thou aren't pure enough. Ever...

Why does the ban lead to "medical discrimination on the basis of sex"?
What am I not understanding?

The greatest mistake in any age seems to be that we think we have learned from the past, that we can't make such mistakes again. Lobotomies are a great example, it seems obvious on hindsight.

It still happening though, there was a netflix doc about and evil evil surgeon who kept killing people with experimental throat treatment. People just believed him because he was charming and persuasive. He had articles written about how amazing he was, won prizes while killing 9 people with a fictional treatment.

We forget the egos and human group mentality which can so easily break the systems set up to protect us.

The argument is that if you can give puberty blockers to a female child to halt precocious puberty but don't give them to a male child for their transition to a feminine gender identity, then you're withholding "equivalent" treatment on the basis of sex.

It wasn't just that the evil evil surgeon kept killing people with experimental throat treatment but that when the surgeries failed, which was inevitable, the patients died horrible deaths.

Thanks for the explanation.
IANAL, let alone a US SC justice, but that seems like a pretty weak argument to me.

As an American, I'm thrilled with this judgement!!

As a person on the left, it's the only silver lining in this otherwise disastrous Trump presidency.

But, I'll give the courts and the current admin this much: they are protecting children from the barbarism that I believe is 'gender affirming care'.

Now, I hope they do what we do for FGM, find ways to prosecute parents who take kids abroad to harm healthy body parts.

This result is good news but yet again it is depressing to see idiots in such powerful positions. The highest court in the most powerful country and three judges don't know their arses from their elbows.

Worse than that: three female judges don't know their arses from their elbows. Or, for reasons of political ideology, feel they have to pretend they don't know their arses from their elbows.

They've got life appointments, too. They don't need to worry what the Democratic Party thinks of them.

The argument is that if you can give puberty blockers to a female child to halt precocious puberty but don't give them to a male child for their transition to a feminine gender identity, then you're withholding "equivalent" treatment on the basis of sex.

That surely can't be it, because the sex is irrelevant in both cases. You can give puberty blockers to a child of either sex for precocious sex, and you're blocked from giving them to a child of either sex for gender identity. (And it's apparently vital for both sexes, so it's not indirect discrimination.)

Checking, it seems it's about actual hormones, rather than puberty blockers. If you'll give boys testosterone to "help them look like boys", but won't give girls testosterone to "help them look like boys", that "conditions the availability of medications on a patient's sex".

Paying attention to sex in medicine? Shocking....