US Supreme Court lets Idaho enforce ban on transgender care for minors

Source: Reuters

April 15, 2024 4:56 PM EDT Updated 21 min ago


April 15 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday let a Republican-backed law in Idaho that criminalizes gender-affirming care for transgender minors broadly take effect after a federal judge blocked it as unconstitutional.

The justices granted Republican Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador's request to narrow a preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Judge Lynn Winmill, who ruled that the law violated the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law, while the state pursues an appeal.

The Supreme Court's order allows the state to enforce the ban against everyone except the plaintiffs who challenged it. Acting in a lawsuit brought by two transgender girls, 15 and 16, and their parents, Winmill blocked the Idaho law, called the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, days before it was set to take effect on Jan. 1.

The law, one of numerous similar measures passed by Republican-led states in recent years, targets medications or surgical interventions for adolescents with gender dysphoria, the clinical diagnosis for the distress that can result from an incongruence between a person's gender identity and the sex they were assigned at birth.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/legal/us-supreme-court-lets-idaho-enforce-ban-transgender-care-minors-2024-04-15/