The Texas Supreme Court has upheld Senate Bill 14, which bans transgender surgeries for minors.
SB 14, which was enacted in September 2023, prohibits physicians from providing puberty blockers, transgender hormone interventions and gender transition surgeries to minors with gender dysphoria. The law also threatens the medical licenses of doctors who provide these treatments. But soon after the enactment, parents whose children were undergoing or planning to undergo transgender interventions, along with three doctors and two LGBTQ+ rights advocates, brought a case against the law.
A Travis County district court judge issued a temporary injunction against SB 14, which the Texas Supreme Court ruling lifted.
The 8-1 ruling stated that SB 14 did not violate the Texas Constitution and determined that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate a probable right to relief on their claims of legislative overreach. Instead, the court asserted that Texas lawmakers acted within their authority to regulate the medical field. (Related: Transgender medical procedures for minors to be reviewed by Supreme Court.)
"We conclude the Legislature made a permissible, rational policy choice to limit the types of available medical procedures for children, particularly in light of the relative nascency of both gender dysphoria and its various modes of treatment and the Legislature's express constitutional authority to regulate the practice of medicine.
"We, therefore, conclude the statute does not unconstitutionally deprive parents of their rights or physicians or health care providers of an alleged property right in their medical licenses or claimed right to occupational freedom. We also conclude the law does not unconstitutionally deny or abridge equality under the law because of sex or any other characteristic asserted by plaintiffs," Justice Rebeca Huddle wrote for the majority.
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Legal experts and advocates react to Texas SC decision
The decision has gained mixed reactions.
Justice Debra Lehrmann, the sole dissenter in the case, stated that the court failed to protect the fundamental rights of parents to make medical decisions for their children.
"Surely the right of parents to make medical decisions, in consultation with their physicians, regarding the welfare of their children is worthy of more constitutional protection than the Court recognizes today," Lehrmann wrote. "Concerningly, the Court's opinion puts all parental decisions at risk of being overruled by the government."
Similarly, Lambda Legal, one of the civil rights organizations representing the plaintiffs, expressed profound disappointment in the ruling. Karen Loewy, the senior counsel and director of constitutional law practice at Lambda Legal, criticized the court for stripping parents of their ability to make medical decisions for their children and penalizing doctors for following leading medical recommendations.
"It is impossible to overstate the devastating impact of this ruling on Texas transgender youth and the families that love and support them," Loewy said. "Instead of leaving medical decisions concerning minor children where they belong, with their parents and their doctors, the Court here has elected to let politicians – in blatant disregard for the overwhelming medical consensus – determine the allowed course of treatment, threatening the health and the very lives of Texas transgender youth."
Meanwhile, Texas Values (TV), a conservative advocacy group, hailed the decision as a significant victory for protecting children.
"No child deserves a false sense of hope from the unscientific idea that they are not really the sex they are born," said Jonathan Covey, the advocacy group's director of policy. "Today, the Texas Supreme Court agrees. This decision affirms what we already know, that doctors cannot mutilate children in the name of healthcare."
Watch this clip of a teacher unabashedly grooming her students using LGBT books.
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