The Supreme Court ruled that Idaho can enforce its law banning gender-transition treatments for minors, overturning a lower court injunction.
The decision included separate concurrences from conservative justices focusing on the broad scope of the lower court’s injunction, which they argued exceeded its authority.
Liberal justices dissented.
TODAY: The US Supreme Court Allows Idaho to Ban Transgender Care for Minors 🙌
This sets a MAJOR Precedent for all 50 states to do the same.
• This law now criminalizes gender-affirming care [mutilation] on minors on Idaho.
• “Healthcare” workers now face up to
10 years in… pic.twitter.com/FJ0Ggt26xX— MJTruthUltra (@MJTruthUltra) April 15, 2024
While the case concerned Idaho’s law restricting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors, the justices’ opinions centered on “universal injunctions” – when a single judge issues an injunction applying beyond the specific plaintiffs.
“The district court issued this sweeping relief even though, by its own admission, the plaintiffs had failed to ‘engage’ with other provisions of Idaho’s law that don’t presently affect them — including the law’s provisions prohibiting the surgical removal of children’s genitals. Id., at 52. In choosing such an extraordinary remedy, the district court clearly strayed from equity’s traditional bounds,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote.
The ruling allows Idaho to enforce the law, aside from the two minors who originally sued.
The law prohibits gender transition treatments for minors that are inconsistent with their biological sex and carries penalties of up to 10 years in prison for medical professionals.
“The district court purported to bar the State from bringing into effect portions of a statute that no party has shown, and no court has held, likely offensive to federal law,” he wrote.
He noted that the case “poses a question about the propriety of universal injunctive relief — a question of great significance that has been in need of the Court’s attention for some time.”
The Idaho Attorney General, who sought to overturn the broad injunction, argued it inappropriately covered all minors in the state rather than just the two plaintiffs.
“The state has a duty to protect and support all children, and that’s why I’m proud to defend Idaho’s law that ensures children are not subjected to these life-altering drugs and procedures,” Idaho AG Raúl Labrador said.
“The plaintiffs are two minors and their parents, and the injunction covers two million,” he wrote, according to the Times.
Placing the law on hold was “leaving vulnerable children subject to procedures that even plaintiffs’ experts agree are inappropriate for some of them,” he wrote.
