The high court ruled 6-3 in favor of overturning a lower court ruling that temporarily blocked the Idaho law from being enforced.
Under Idaho’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act, which Republican Gov. Brad Little signed after state lawmakers passed it last April, doctors who provide puberty-blocking drugs, cross-sex hormones and sex-change surgeries for trans-identified minors face up to 10 years in prison.
While the Supreme Court’s decision did not rule on whether Idaho’s state law is constitutional, Justice Neil Gorsuch warned about the precedent of judges issuing broad injunctions against laws in response to a “limited dispute” involving a few plaintiffs.
He wrote, “In recent years, certain district courts across the country have not contented themselves with issuing equitable orders that redress the injuries of the plaintiffs before them but have sought instead to govern an entire State or even the whole Nation from their courtrooms.”
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and the ACLU of Idaho, which is representing the plaintiffs, criticized the high court’s ruling as “an awful result for transgender youth and their families.”
Idaho is one of 23 states that have enacted bans on some or all forms of gender transition procedures for minors.