WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — Four states will get another chance to protect gender-confused individuals from harmful and permanently damaging transgender drugs and surgeries, thanks to the Supreme Court.
Several weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of Tennessee’s general prohibition on gender-confused children taking drugs and surgeries to make themselves look like the opposite sex.
But the decision also opens the door for other states who passed limits on the removal of healthy organs and the injection of dangerous chemicals to defend their laws. The Supreme Court paused consideration of these cases while it deliberated the case U.S. v. Skrmetti. It recently granted several requests for a rehearing.
North Carolina, for example, will have another opportunity to plead its case in defense of a law that prohibits participants in a state insurance plan from using it to get transgender drugs and surgeries.
The State Health Plan offers health insurance benefits to government employees and their children. However, the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the plan’s exclusion of the experimental and unscientific procedures. The Supreme Court smacked down the logic used by the activist judges to claim prohibiting that the procedures violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
State Treasurer Brad Briner previously predicted the court would side with North Carolina. “In its simplest form, this case has always been about ensuring that the State Health Plan can conduct its business in a manner that best serves the members of the Plan,” he stated. “We are thankful that the Supreme Court has affirmed the ability of the Plan to do just that.”
State laws in Idaho, West Virginia, and Oklahoma that protect individuals from transgender drugs and procedures but had been struck down by activist judges will get a second hearing as well.
ABC News reported:
The justices ordered the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, to review its decision that West Virginia’s and North Carolina’s refusal to cover certain [“transition” interventions] for [gender-confused] people with government-sponsored insurance is discriminatory.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will get back a case from Idaho stemming from the state’s ban on certain surgical procedures for Medicaid recipients.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver will review its ruling blocking an Oklahoma ban on people changing their gender on birth certificates.
Other legal challenges could remain for states who acknowledge biological reality.
In Arkansas, a federal challenge centers on both Equal Protection claims (which have now been rendered moot by the Supreme Court) and Due Process claims.
Currently 27 states have laws that protect minors from transgender drugs and procedures, according to the pro-LGBT Kaiser Family Foundation.
Legal scholars have praised the Supreme Court’s ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti.
“We are fortunate not only that justices on the Supreme Court recognized the right of states to protect their children from hazardous medical procedures, but that the Trump administration reversed the shameful legal posture previously presented in the case by the Biden administration that challenged the state’s right to protect its minor citizens from such perilous and dangerous malpractice by physicians,” Hans von Spakovsky, a former Department of Justice attorney now with Heritage Foundation, stated.
Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Thomas Jipping added: “The American people and their elected representatives, not unelected judges, have the authority to tackle issues like these. Tennessee is making sure that the current fad of gender ideology does not permanently harm children. Because the Constitution does not decide that issue for them, the Supreme Court properly chose to leave it to them.”
