WASHINGTON (CN) — Idaho asked the Supreme Court for emergency intervention on Wednesday as it tries to enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender children.
The state urged the justices to limit a federal judge’s ruling blocking the Vulnerable Child Protection Act, claiming the injunction was too broad.
“Every day Idaho’s law remains enjoined exposes vulnerable children to risky and dangerous medical procedures and infringes Idaho’s sovereign power to enforce its democratically enacted law,” Alan Hurst, Idaho’s Solicitor General, wrote in the state’s application. “These procedures have lifelong, irreversible consequences, with more and more minors voicing their regret for taking this path.”
Under the law, doctors in Idaho face 10 years in prison for providing gender-affirming medications or surgical treatments to minors. Idaho’s law makes it a felony to provide those treatments to transgender children — but minors can receive them for other reasons, such as affirming the gender that is consistent with the child’s biological sex.
The families of two unnamed transgender girls sued the state, claiming the law was unconstitutional. One of the transgender girls, identified as Pam Poe, was prescribed puberty blockers by her doctor in 2022 to treat gender dysphoria. Poe — who is 15 years old — struggled with depression, anxiety, and self-harm prior to her diagnosis and treatment.
Jane Doe also struggled with gender dysphoria and was treated with puberty blockers. Doe — who is 16 years old — said hormone therapy has significantly improved her mental health.
Both Poe and Doe said Idaho’s ban on gender-affirming care negatively impacted their mental health, leaving their families to consider leaving the state to maintain their treatments.
The families claim Idaho’s ban violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment because it only bans care for transgender children, such that the law discriminates against transgender youth based on their status and sex.
Senior U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill blocked Idaho’s ban after finding it likely violates the Constitution. Winmill said the law gave unequal treatment to transgender children in violation of the 14th Amendment. The judge also said parents should be able to make decisions about what’s best for their children.
The Ninth Circuit declined Idaho’s attempt to block the injunction, leaving the state to turn to the Supreme Court.
Idaho describes gender-affirming treatments as experimental and dangerous. The legislature claimed it was forced to enact a ban on this care to prevent “irreversible physical alterations” that could leave patients “sterile or with lifelong sexual dysfunction.”
Idaho told the court a stay on the lower court injunction was warranted because the state would likely win its appeal on the merits. The state urged the court to limit the injunction to Poe and Doe, arguing that the universal injunction is too broad.
“Universal injunctions disregard the limits of the equity tradition by exceeding what is necessary to redress the plaintiff’s injury and impinging on the rights of unrepresented non-parties,” Hurst wrote. “As the district court did here, these injunctions depart from what equity understood about the judicial power as ‘fundamentally … to render judgments in individual cases,’ reconceiving it instead as judicial authority to ‘make federal policy’ or to ‘‘strik[e] down’ laws or regulations.’”
The court asked the families to respond to Idaho’s application by Feb. 28.
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