U.S. Department of Justice backs out of Tennessee transgender care case

The U.S. Department of Justice under the Trump Administration is withdrawing its challenge of a Tennessee law – argued before the Supreme Court – that blocks gender affirming care for children.

A deputy solicitor general for the Department of Justice notified the nation’s highest court Friday that it no longer believes the state law denies equal protection based on sex or any other characteristic. In addition, the new administration wouldn’t have intervened to challenge Tennessee’s law or the high court’s review of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision that reversed a preliminary injunction against the law passed in 2023, according to a letter obtained by the Tennessee Lookout.

Yet the department is not requesting dismissal of the case, instead saying “prompt resolution of the question presented will bear on many cases pending in the lower courts.”

Tennessee’s gender affirming care ban for children goes to U.S. Supreme Court for arguments

Senate Bill 1, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson of Franklin and House Majority Leader William Lamberth of Portland, prohibits healthcare providers from administering puberty blockers and providing hormone treatments to transgender minors.

Three Tennessee families with transgender children and Memphis Dr. Susan Lacy sued the state two years ago, then the federal government intervened on behalf of the plaintiffs challenging Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender minors. The case does not take up the question of surgical procedures for minors who identify as another sex. 

The plaintiffs are represented by ACLU, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld. In a joint statement, the legal team said, “Tennessee’s discriminatory and baseless ban continues to upend the lives of our plaintiffs–transgender adolescents, their families, and a medical provider. These Tennesseans have had their Constitutional right to equal protection under the law violated by the state of Tennessee.”

“We condemn this latest move and will continue to fight to vindicate the constitutional rights of all LGBTQ people.”

Supreme Court justices appeared to be split during oral arguments in December 2024, with conservative justices raising questions about European countries dialing back support for gender affirming care and liberal justices saying it is clear that some children need gender affirming care.

This story has been updated.