More than 30 Republicans file amicus brief against Tennessee’s transgender care ban

A group of more than 30 current and former Republican officials filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday condemning a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming medical care for trans youth.

“States have no business overruling the decisions of fit parents who make an informed medical choice for their children that is supported by their doctors,” the filing reads.

The Supreme Court is preparing to take up a constitutional challenge to the law, which restricts access to puberty blockers, hormone therapies and surgeries specifically for the purpose of gender transitioning for people under the age of 18. The law does not restrict this care for non-transgender patients.

At least 25 states have passed similar bans on gender-affirming medical care.

The Republican signatories include representatives from state legislatures, the George W. Bush administration, as well as the John McCain and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns. It also includes Jordan Willow Evans, the nation’s first openly transgender elected Republican.

The signatories argue that the law is “nothing less than ‘a vast government overreach,'” quoting former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, who vetoed a gender-confirming medical care ban for transgender youths in his state.

Hutchinson’s veto was followed by a veto from Republican Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine against his state’s own proposed gender-affirming care ban. Both Hutchinson’s and DeWine’s vetoes were overridden by their respective state legislature.

Republicans and political conservatives in opposition to the Tennessee law say they are against the law because of their values of limited government and respect for families – “in particular, the rights of parents to make weighty decisions about the upbringing and medical care of their own children.”

“Parents want their children to be safe, happy and healthy. Parents of transgender children are no different,” the filing reads. “Reasonable people can disagree about what is best for kids, but the question presented here is who makes that decision: their parents or government bureaucrats?”

The filing also quotes Republican former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – whose former staff is also represented among the amicus brief signatories.

On the presidential campaign trail in 2023, Christie said that “parents are the people who are best positioned to make these judgments” and “the government should [n]ever be stepping into the place of the parents.”

Tennessee Republican lawmakers in favor of trans care bans have defended the law in light of the impending Supreme Court case, often arguing that children should wait to receive care until they are adults.

"Tennessee is committed to protecting children from permanent, life-altering decisions," Gov. Bill Lee said in an April 2023 post on the social media platform X after the Justice Department argued the law violates the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause.

In a statement on the Supreme Court case, Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti also defended the law: "We fought hard to defend Tennessee's law protecting kids from irreversible gender treatments and secured a thoughtful and well-reasoned opinion from the 6th Circuit.”

He continued, “I look forward to finishing the fight in the United States Supreme Court. This case will bring much-needed clarity to whether the Constitution contains special protections for gender identity.”

The filing notes people and medical professionals believe that it endangers children with gender dysphoria not to provide them with gender-affirming care.

Major national medical associations -- including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and more than 20 others -- agree that gender-affirming care is safe, effective, beneficial and medically necessary.

Research has found that hormone therapy can improve the mental health of transgender adolescents and teenagers, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine, reducing depression and anxiety and increasing life satisfaction.