July 1, 2024
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — The Texas Supreme Court upheld the state’s ban on gender transition treatments for transgender youths Friday.
The 8-1 ruling leaves in place a law that has been in effect since Sept. 1, 2023. Texas is the largest of at least 25 states that have adopted laws restricting or banning gender transition treatments for transgender minors.
The Texas law prevents transgender people under 18 from accessing hormone therapies, puberty blockers and transition surgeries. Children who had already started the medications had to taper off their use.
“We conclude the Legislature made a permissible, rational policy choice to limit the types of available medical procedures for children, particularly in light of the relative nascency of both gender dysphoria and its various modes of treatment and the Legislature’s express constitutional authority to regulate the practice of medicine,” Justice Rebeca Aizpuru Huddle wrote in the court's decision.
A lower court had ruled the law unconstitutional, but it was allowed to take effect while the state Supreme Court considered the case.
Texas’ Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, vowed in a post on the social platform X after the ruling that his office “will use every tool at our disposal to ensure that doctors and medical institutions follow the law.”
The law includes exemptions for children experiencing early puberty or who have “a medically verifiable genetic disorder of sex development.”
As more states move to enforce health care restrictions, families of transgender youths are increasingly forced to travel out of state for the care they need at clinics with growing waiting lists. At least 13 states have laws protecting care for transgender minors.
Most of the states that have passed restrictions face lawsuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear an appeal from the Biden administration attempting to block state bans on gender transition treatments. The case before the high court involves a Tennessee law that restricts puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors, similar to the Texas law.
Texas officials defended the law as necessary to protect children and noted a myriad of other restrictions for minors on tattoos, alcohol, tobacco and certain over-the-counter drugs.
