New Jersey joins fight against state bans on care for transgender minors

New Jersey has joined 19 other states in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block Tennessee's ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. (Photo by Greg LaRose)

New Jersey has joined 19 other states in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

In a brief filed to the court Tuesday, the states’ attorneys general argued that gender-affirming care is endorsed by every major medical organization and categorically denying youth access to it “departs from traditional norms of state medical regulation.”

It also violates their constitutional right to equal protection of the laws, they wrote.

“Gender-affirming care can provide highly beneficial — indeed, ‘potentially life-saving’ — treatment to transgender adolescents with gender dysphoria,” the attorneys wrote. “And clinical standards of care account for any limited risks of that treatment by requiring doctors to make individualized findings that gender-affirming care is medically necessary.”

New Jersey Attorney General Matt Platkin seconded that sentiment on social media Tuesday, writing: “As the medical community recognizes, gender-affirming care saves lives.”

Gov. Phil Murphy last year declared New Jersey a “safe haven” for transgender and nonbinary people seeking gender-affirming care. New Jersey has more than 45,100 transgender and nonbinary residents, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA.

The other states joining the petition filed Tuesday include all of New Jersey’s nearest neighbors, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, New York and Connecticut.

Tennessee’s 2023 law prohibits doctors from providing transgender care for minors, including puberty blockers, hormones and surgeries. Several families of transgender youth sued to block the law, and the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld it.

The American Civil Liberties Union and Lamba Legal asked the Supreme Court to review the case, and the high court agreed in June to hear it this fall. A decision is expected next summer.

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