A Judge found that Missouri’s trans treatment ban for minors is constitutional. How will this affect the similar case before the SCOTUS?

From The New York Post. A Missouri judge found that a state ban on transgender surgeries and hormone treatments for minors was constitutional Monday, just over a week before the US Supreme Court takes up a very similar case out of Tennessee.

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Judge Robert Craig Carter highlighted the murky ethics behind the controversial treatments for gender dysphoria in his ruling on challenges from LGBTQ civil rights activists against the Save Adolescents From Experimentation Act, which was signed into law last year.

“The evidence from trial showed that the medical ethics of gender dysphoria treatment for children and adolescents are entirely unsettled,” Carter, who sits on the 44th Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri, wrote in a lengthy 72-page ruling. …

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson (R) signed the law last year, and it went into effect in August 2023. It also enacted a three-year ban on puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors unless they were in the middle of such treatment.

The measure slapped penalties on physicians who flout the law, including possible revocation of their medical license and the ability for patients to sue for at least 15 years with a minimum of $500,000 in damages for a successful suit.

Carter also pointed to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that concluded options for state legislatures must “be epically broad” in instances that are “fraught with medical and scientific uncertainties.”  …

Both Lambda Legal and the ACLU Missouri decried the ruling and vowed to appeal it. …

With that ruling, Missouri appears to be the first state where a trial court affirmed such a ban. At least 26 states have similar policies on the books, while 24 states and the nation’s capital have laws protecting access to such interventions. …

[On Wednesday], the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in US v. Skrmetti, in one of the most hotly watched items on its docket this term.

The case calls into question Tennessee’s prohibition on all treatments for “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex.” …

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(Excerpt from The New York Post. Photo Credit: Wesley Tingey on Unsplash)