A federal appeals court ruled against Texas doctors who had tried to sue President Biden’s administration over its transgender policies this week.
The three judges making up the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals did not rule on the merits of the case, but instead unanimously found that the doctors did not have standing to sue. The court’s Monday decision asserted that the doctors had not violated the policy, nor did they face any threat of enforcement.
The Biden policy bans discrimination against transgender people in health care. Monday’s ruling overturns a previous favorable decision for the doctors handed down by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.
Biden’s Health and Human Services Department announced a rule change in 2021, choosing to interpret a section of the Affordable Care Act that banned discrimination on the basis of sex to also apply to transgender people. The three Texas doctors argued that interpretation goes beyond the text of the law.
The doctors further argued that the policy could force them to administer treatments they do not support. They cited examples like prostate cancer in a transgender woman, which would require treatment based on the individual’s biological sex.
The ruling comes just weeks after the Supreme Court heard arguments in its own case on transgender policy, one relating to whether the Constitution allows for state bans on transgender surgeries for minors.
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Conservative justices on the Supreme Court appeared reluctant in oral arguments to overturn the Tennessee law in question in the case. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Brett Kavanaugh suggested that state legislatures, rather than courts, are best equipped to regulate medical procedures. The Constitution leaves such questions “to the people’s representatives,” Roberts noted during arguments, rather than to nine justices on the Supreme Court, “none of whom is a doctor.”
Justice Samuel Alito, however, cited “overwhelming evidence” from certain medical studies listing the negative consequences for adolescents that underwent gender transition treatments. Should the justices rule along party lines to uphold the lower court’s decision, it will have sweeping implications for more than 20 U.S. states that have moved to implement similar laws.
Petitioners in the case were represented by the Biden administration and the ACLU, which sued to overturn the Tennessee law on behalf of the parents of three transgender adolescents and a Memphis-based doctor.
At issue during Wednesday’s oral arguments was the level of scrutiny that courts should use to evaluate the constitutionality of state bans on transgender medical treatment for minors, such as SB1, and whether these laws are considered discriminating on the basis of sex or against a “quasi-suspect class,” thus warranting a higher level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
Fox News’ Breanne Deppisch and Reuters contributed to this report.
