Morrisey hopes gender-affirming care ruling will help WV’s legal fight for transgender sports ban

Gov. Patrick Morrisey celebrated a decision from the United States Supreme Court released on Wednesday that upholds a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors.

The decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti overturned a lower court’s previous finding that the restrictions violate the constitutional rights of children seeking puberty blockers and hormones to treat gender dysphoria. The U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the district court’s decision and sent the case to the high court.

The court ruled 6-3 on Wednesday that children who seek such treatment don’t qualify as a protected class. Since they are not being denied the medications due to their sex, barring the treatments is not discrimination. 

In a statement, Morrisey said he is “optimistic” that the ruling from the nation’s highest court will allow West Virginia to enforce its “common sense law” that bars trans children from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity.

That law was passed under Gov. Jim Justice in 2021. In May 2021, the West Virginia arm of the American Civil Liberties Union along with Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit, B.P.J. vs. the West Virginia Board of Education, against the state challenging the law. The ACLU and Lambda Legal were representing Becky Pepper-Jackson, who was 12 years old at the time and who would have been kicked off of her middle school track team if the law was enforced.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in February 2023 blocked the state from removing Pepper-Jackson from her school’s track and field team as legal advocates appealed a lower court’s ruling upholding the ban. Two months later, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a request from Morrisey — acting then as the state’s attorney general — to overturn the lower courts decision and enforce the law by removing Pepper-Jackson from her track team.

In April 2024, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the state’s law, saying it violated transgender students’ rights under Title IX, a federal civil rights law prohibiting discrimination based on sex in education programs.

Following that ruling, Morrisey again asked the U.S. Supreme Court to take up the case and review the state’s trans athlete ban.

In his statement Wednesday, Morrisey did not specify how he believed that the ruling on Tennessee’s gender-affirming care ban would support West Virginia’s legal fight against Pepper-Jackson. He said he was “grateful” for the ruling, which represented a “big step forward” toward removing the current injunction. 

This legislative session, lawmakers passed a near-total ban on gender-affirming care for minors. Senate Bill 299 closed loopholes left open in a previous bill that law allowed children diagnosed with severe gender dysphoria to receive medical therapy, including hormonal treatment, if they are considered at risk for self-harm or suicide.

Medical treatments for children with gender dysphoria can include prescribing certain hormones or hormone blockers, which delay the onset of puberty temporarily to stop the development of permanent physical characteristics that don’t match the child’s gender identity. 

Studies show these medical interventions are highly successful in preventing long term and serious psychological issues — including depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, which are already more common in transgender youth and adults than their cisgender peers.

The Women’s Health Centers of West Virginia and Maryland — one of only a few remaining providers for gender-affirming care in the Mountain State — issued a statement Wednesday saying the Supreme Court’s decision “threatens access to essential, often life-saving care for transgender youth across the country.”

“By allowing this cruel and discriminatory law to stand, the Court has set a dangerous precedent, one that could further erode access to critical health care and embolden states to escalate their attacks on trans communities,” said Danielle Maness, interim executive director for the clinics. “At the Women’s Health Centers of West Virginia and Maryland, we remain resolute … We will not back down. We will keep showing up for a future in which bodily autonomy is the right of every Appalachian.”

Maness said the clinics will continue to provide gender-affirming care to adults in West Virginia and to children in Maryland.

“We do this because each of us deserves the right to make decisions about our bodies, futures and care with dignity and support,” Maness continued.

According to a 2024 survey by the LGBTQ advocacy nonprofit The Trevor Project, 51% of trans and non-binary children in West Virginia considered suicide in the previous year while 16% of them attempted suicide. 

Nationwide, states that have implemented bans on gender-affirming care for children have seen a significant increase in suicide attempts by transgender and gender nonconforming teenagers in the years following those bans taking effect. 

Doctors warned West Virginia lawmakers during the session that if SB 299 were to become law, they will likely see an increase in anxiety, depression and suicide among the state’s trans and nonbinary children.

That possibility will now occur as the Trump Administration also on Wednesday made cuts to the national 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, ending specialized suicide prevention services for LGBTQ+ youth.