Kentucky’s ban on gender-affirming care for trans youth faces U.S. Supreme Court
A pending U.S. Supreme Court decision will likely have huge ramifications for transgender youth in Kentucky seeking gender-affirming health care.
Such care, including hormone therapy and puberty blockers, has been banned in Kentucky for more than a year after Kentucky’s GOP-dominated legislature outlawed it with Senate Bill 150 in 2023.
But a lawsuit hoping to overturn part of SB 150 has made its way to the highest court in the land, which heard oral arguments on the topic Dec. 4.
Here’s a quick refresher about what’s going on and how we got here.
What is SB 150? And what’s this about a lawsuit?
Senate Bill 150 from Kentucky’s 2023 legislative session was and is considered to be one of the worst anti-trans bills in the country.
SB 150 is pretty far-reaching, touching on everything from how teachers can approach students’ pronouns in class to whether or not transgender kids can access gender-affirming health care and surgeries.
The part we need to focus on right now is the gender-affirming care part, because that’s what seven families of trans youth and the ACLU of Kentucky sued the state over in May 2023 to block.
The lawsuit, named Doe v. Thornbury, focuses solely on allowing minors to access gender-affirming care like puberty blockers and hormone therapy. It does not seek to overturn SB 150’s ban on gender-affirming surgeries on minors.
SB 150, the ACLU of Kentucky says on its website, “is an egregious example of government overreach by inserting lawmakers between doctors and patients and violating the fundamental rights of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. This law prohibits essential medical care for trans youth in Kentucky by targeting health care providers and threatening them with loss of licensure if they provide that care to minors.”
(The ACLU of Kentucky also has all of its legal documents publicly available on its website, should you be interested.)
What’s going on with the lawsuit and how did it land in front of the Supreme Court?
The lawsuit’s legal journey has been kinda confusing, so I’m going to simplify it as much as possible.
Basically, the Kentucky lawsuit got filed in May 2023, yes? OK. It got filed in federal court. That court decided in June 2023 to allow trans youth in Kentucky to continue being able to receive gender-affirming care while the larger lawsuit played out.
The next day, then-Attorney General Daniel Cameron — a Republican — appealed the decision. At some point in this process, a federal appeals court overturned a similar decision issued in a lawsuit over Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care.
Because of this, the same judge who initially said it was OK to continue allowing gender-affirming care in Kentucky backtracked and said, actually, no, y’all can’t do that.
In September 2023, that appeals court ruled 2-1 that the temporary block on gender-affirming care should stay in place as the lawsuit plays out.
Also, at some point, Kentucky’s case got merged with the super similar case from Tennessee because the two states share the same federal Court of Appeals.
So then, Tennessee’s case gets appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which is the final legal recourse in a situation like this. The Supreme Court agreed to review the situation, and held oral arguments in early December.
Why should I care?
TL;DR: Because this will likely determine whether or not Kentucky’s young people — along with young people across the country — will be able to access gender-affirming care, particularly before puberty runs its course.
Although the legal focus is technically more on Tennessee’s law, any decision the Supreme Court issues will impact trans rights nationally — but especially in Kentucky, since our case is tightly linked to Tennessee’s.
At least 26 states have passed similar legislation, and this is the first time the country’s top court is looking at the issue.
A recent press release from the ACLU of Kentucky described the situation: “The outcome of the DOJ’s challenge to the Sixth Circuit’s decision will determine how Kentucky’s case, as well as Tennessee’s, moves forward, and a favorable decision would have important implications for pending challenges to categorical bans on care for transgender youth in multiple states.”
Basically, if the Supreme Court decides that these types of bans are fine and legal, the ban on gender-affirming care for trans kids in Kentucky will likely stay in effect.
If the nine justices decided to strike down Tennessee’s ban, that could ultimately mean Kentucky’s ban goes down, too — allowing trans kids to access necessary health care again.
When is the Supreme Court dropping their SB 150 decision?
The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on the Tennessee/Kentucky/SB 150 legal situation in June 2025.
Yes, I said June. Sorry, I don’t make the rules.
