A federal judge on Wednesday temporarily halted the enforcement of part of Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for minors in the state.
Senate Bill 1, which was signed into law by Republican Gov. Bill Lee in March and set to take effect July 1, prohibited health care providers "from performing on a minor or administering to a minor a medical procedure if the performance or administration of the procedure is for the purpose of enabling a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor's sex."
It specifies that minors who receive care cannot be held liable, but lawsuits could be brought against a minor's parents "if the parent of the minor consented to the conduct that constituted the violation on behalf of the minor."
In Wednesday's ruling, US District Judge Eli Richardson issued a preliminary injunction blocking the state's enforcement of a ban on such gender-affirming treatments as hormone therapies and puberty blockers. The ruling, however, allowed Tennessee to ban gender transition surgical procedures.
"The Court realizes that today's decision will likely stoke the already controversial fire regarding the rights of transgender individuals in American society on the one hand, and the countervailing power of states to control certain activities within their borders and to use that power to protect minors," Richardson said in his ruling.
"If Tennessee wishes to regulate access to certain medical procedures, it must do so in a manner that does not infringe on the rights conferred by the United States Constitution, which is of course supreme to all other laws of the land," the judge added. "With regard to SB1, Tennessee has likely failed to do just this."
The American Civil Liberties Union celebrated Wednesday's ruling. Joshua Block, senior staff attorney for ACLU's LGBT & HIV Projects, called it a "critical victory for transgender youth, their families, and their medical providers across the state."
"Across the country, we're seeing a clear and unanimous rejection of these laws as unconstitutional, openly discriminatory, and a danger to the very youth they claim to protect," Block said.
CNN reported earlier this month that more than a dozen states have targeted gender-affirming care, with some bans including the possibility of a felony charge.
