Worthy Christian News > US News > SCOTUS will likely have to weigh in on gender-altering medical treatments for minors, experts say

SCOTUS will likely have to weigh in on gender-altering medical treatments for minors, experts say

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Amid a flurry of court cases initiated by US trans activists and conservatives who oppose each other on the issue of gender-altering medical treatments for minors, legal experts have concluded that the matter will eventually have to be decided by the United States Supreme Court (SCOTUS), CBN News reports.

A new report in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that the number of transgender surgeries in the US increased from around 4,500 to a massive 13,000 between 2016 and 2019, CBN reports. Critics are especially concerned about aggressive trans activism that advocates radical, life-changing, gender-altering treatments for minors who may only be suffering from temporary gender dysphoria or who may be caught up in a popular trend.

In response, more than 20 Republican-led states have passed laws restricting medical intervention for children with gender dysphoria, CBN reports. For example, Missouri has banned trans surgery for children and prohibits prescribing puberty blockers or hormones to minors under 18. 

However, trans activists have filed lawsuits challenging state bans on gender-altering treatments for minors, with differing results, CBN reports. “In Missouri and Texas, judges have allowed the ban to go forward while an Arkansas judge ruled against that state’s legislation that banned gender-altering procedures for minors,” CBN said in its report.

Given the potential for an increasing number of diverse court rulings, legal experts such as attorney Mary Rice Hasson of the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington D.C., believe the US Supreme Court will likely have to weigh in. “Even though you have those states doing that good work, we have an equal number of states, unfortunately that have become very aggressive where the attorneys general of those particular states are saying no, we think parents should be able to choose this ‘gender affirming’ care, and so they’re trying to wrap it up in parental rights,” Hasson explained in a statement to CBN.