The Supreme Court may soon decide the fate of Alabama’s gender-specific care ban for transgender youth

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Wednesday in a case about whether states can ban gender-affirming surgeries for minors.

Alabama filed a brief in support of Tennessee’s law banning gender reassignment procedures for children challenged in the case. Gender-affirming care for transgender minors has been banned in 26 Republican-led states.

Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall filed an amicus brief in the case in October.

“When the Biden-Harris administration sued Alabama and asked the state to allow child sex reassignment procedures, we fought back,” Marshall said in a news release in October.

In 2023, the Justice Department challenged Tennessee’s law that banned affirmative care.

Alabama’s law banning gender-affirming care is in effect after an appeals court ruled in the state’s favor earlier this year.

Marshall’s office said the Biden-Harris administration improperly represented medical guidelines in challenging the bans “to persuade courts to eliminate age limits on sterilizing chemical treatments and surgeries for children.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics, which includes 67,000 pediatricians, reaffirmed its support for gender-equitable care in 2023.

Alabama’s response to the Tennessee case argues that the legislature, not the courts, should be the institutions that decide whether minors can receive gender reassignment surgery.

“By giving power to these ‘expert’ groups, courts risk turning them into tools for political ends, and that is exactly what happened here,” Marshall’s office said.

According to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law, about 113,900 transgender youth live in states that ban affirmative care. Another 123,600 youth live in states where such a ban is pending.