The Supreme Court ruled Monday that Idaho could enforce its ban on sex-change surgeries for minors.
The law passed in 2023 bars doctors from prescribing hormone therapy, puberty blockers or performing sex-change operations such as a mastectomy, vaginoplasty or phalloplasty on minor patients. The law was challenged by two families with children who identify as transgender in July 2023 alongside the American Civil Liberties Union and put on hold by a lower court in December, but the Supreme Court ordered that the stay be removed to allow the law to go into effect.
“Ordinarily, injunctions like these may go no further than necessary to provide interim relief to the parties,” the court wrote. “In this case, however, the district court went much further, prohibiting a State from enforcing any aspect of its duly enacted law against anyone. Today, the Court stays the district court’s injunction to the extent it applies to nonparties, which is to say to the extent it provides “universal” relief. That is a welcome development.”
Doctors face up to ten years in prison if they are found guilty of violating the law, according to the AP. The justices ordered that the two children at the center of the case, who were receiving transgender medical care previously, be allowed to continue their treatment.
The majority opinion was opposed by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Nearly half of the states in the country have passed legislation banning sex-change medical procedures for minors. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas recently vetoed a bill that would have banned transgender surgeries for minors, arguing the legislation interfered with parental rights.
