Trans Youths Argue to Keep Tennessee, Kentucky Care Bans Blocked

Lawyers for transgender youths faced a mostly skeptical Sixth Circuit panel Friday while arguing that their clients should be able to access puberty-blocking drugs and hormone therapy for the duration of their litigation over two states’ gender-affirming care bans.

During consolidated oral arguments, Chief Judge Jeffrey S. Sutton and Judge Amul R. Thapar expressed doubts about whether Kentucky and Tennessee provisions that limit treatment choices for minors who have gender dysphoria discriminate based on sex and require greater justifications to pass muster under the equal protection clause.

Pushing back against the their suggestion that the laws aren’t sex-based for purposes ...