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A federal appeals court ruled against Texas doctors who had tried to sue President Biden’s administration over their transgender policies this week
The three judges who make up the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals did not rule on the merits of the case, but unanimously found that the doctors lacked standing to sue. The court’s decision on Monday ensured that the doctors had not violated the policy, nor did they face any threat of enforcement.
Biden’s policy prohibits discrimination against transgender people in health care. Monday’s ruling overturns an earlier ruling in favor of the doctors by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.
Biden’s Department of Health and Human Services announced a rule change in 2021, choosing to interpret a section of the Affordable Care Act that prohibited sex discrimination to also apply to transgender people. The three Texas doctors argued that the interpretation goes beyond the text of the law.
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Texas doctors try to challenge President Biden’s transgender policies. (Nathaniel Pawlowski, REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo)
In addition, doctors argued that the policy could force them to administer treatments they do not support. They cited examples such as prostate cancer in a transgender woman, which would require treatment based on the individual’s biological sex.
The sentence comes a few weeks later The Supreme Court heard the arguments in his own case on transgender policy, one related to whether the Constitution allows the state to ban transgender surgeries for minors.
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Conservative Supreme Court justices appeared reluctant in oral arguments to strike down the Tennessee law at issue in the case. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that state legislatures, rather than courts, are better equipped to regulate medical procedures. The Constitution leaves those questions “to the representatives of the people,” Roberts noted during the arguments, rather than nine Supreme Court justices, “none of whom are doctors.”
A transgender rights advocate takes part in a demonstration in front of the United States Supreme Court. (Getty Images)
Justice Samuel Alito, however, cited “overwhelming evidence” from certain medical studies that listed the negative consequences for teenagers who underwent gender transition treatments. If the justices rule along party lines to uphold the lower court’s decision, it will have sweeping implications for more than 20 US states that have moved to implement similar laws.
The petitioners in the case were represented by the Biden administration and the ACLU, which sued to overturn the Tennessee law on behalf of the parents of three transgender teenagers and a Memphis doctor.
A flag supporting LGBTQ+ rights decorates a desk on the Democratic side of the Kansas House of Representatives during a debate. (AP Photo/John Hanna, File)
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During Wednesday’s oral arguments, the level of scrutiny courts should use to evaluate the constitutionality of state bans on transgender medical treatment for minors, such as SB1, and whether those laws are considered discriminatory to reason of sex or against a “quasi. -suspect class,” which warrants a higher level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
Breanne Deppisch of Fox News and Reuters contributed to this report.
