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Update: The U.S. Supreme Court will review a ruling from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals that let Tennessee and Kentucky enforce bans on transgender health care while lawsuits against the bans continue. The key question is whether laws that block transgender people from accessing health care because they are transgender violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Learn more.

GLBTQ Legal Advocates & Defenders (GLAD), the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC), Campaign for Southern Equality and eleven other women’s, healthcare and LGBTQ+ organizations filed an amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief in the U.S. Court of Appeal for the Sixth Circuit urging reinstatement of the court order preventing enforcement of transgender healthcare bans for adolescents in Tennessee and Kentucky while the legal challenges to those bans continue.

The brief argues that Tennessee and Kentucky state laws prohibiting doctors from providing healthcare to transgender adolescents discriminate on the basis of sex, and are therefore subject to heightened judicial scrutiny. These bans target transgender adolescents to deny them care, even when they, their doctors and their parents agree it is essential for their health. Such laws reflect hostility and serve only to harm young people.

The amici are organizations committed to ensuring everyone, including women and LGBTQ+ people, can access the healthcare they need, In addition to GLAD and NWLC, the organizations joining the friend-of-the-court brief are:

  • Campaign for Southern Equality
  • Equality Federation
  • Family Equality
  • Human Rights Campaign
  • Memphis Center for Reproductive Health
  • National Center for Transgender Equality,
  • OUTMemphis
  • Southern Legal Counsel
  • Southern Poverty Law Center
  • Tennessee Equality Project
  • Trevor Project
  • White Coats for Trans Youth

L.W. v. Skrmetti was filed by the ACLU, ACLU of Oklahoma, and Lambda Legal. Doe v. Thornbury was filed by the ACLU of Kentucky and National Center for Lesbian Rights.