The Supreme Court tossed aside a handful of lower court rulings last 30 June that sided with transgender Americans, requiring that judges in those cases revisit their decisions in the wake of a blockbuster ruling this month that upheld a ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth.
The justices upended rulings that blocked state policies excluding coverage for gender-affirming care in state-sponsored health insurance plans.
The high court also tossed out an appeals court ruling that went against Oklahoma in a challenge to the state’s effort to ban transgender residents from changing the sex designation on their birth certificates. In a loss for the transgender Americans who sued, those decisions will now be reviewed again.
Lower courts must now review the cases again in light of the Supreme Court’s major decision on June 18 that upheld Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for trans minors. The 6-3 ruling in US v. Skrmetti steered clear of discussion about other laws involving transgender Americans, but it also did little to protect them in other cases. The court ruled that Tennessee had not discriminated on the basis of sex, which gave the state far more room to regulate medical care.
The court also held that the law did not discriminate on the basis of transgender status.
But three conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Amy Coney Barrett – said that they would not require courts to more closely scrutinize other laws that discriminate on the basis of transgender status. While a majority of the court declined to adopt that approach, if those three justices can convince two of their colleagues to agree with that reasoning, it would give conservative states much more leeway to enact laws aimed at trans people, both minors and adults. An estimated 1.6 million Americans over the age of 13 identify as transgender, the court said.
Notably, the Supreme Court did not deal with several cases involving state bans on athletes playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity.
One of the cases the Supreme Court is asking lower courts to revisit is related to birth certificates.
After years of allowing people to change their sex on a birth certificate, Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt in 2021 signed an executive order barring the Oklahoma health department from allowing anyone to alter their sex or gender on the document. A group of transgender residents challenged the law, arguing that it violated their equal protection rights.
A federal district court dismissed the suit, but the 10th US Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the equal protection claim to proceed. Oklahoma officials appealed to the Supreme Court in January.
Now that case will return to the appeals court for a fresh look in light of the Skrmetti decision.
Another issue that had been pending for months at the Supreme Court dealt with health insurance plans that do not cover transgender care. Lower courts had sided with the transgender advocates, but now will have to look at their decisions again after Skrmetti.