Supreme Court allows Idaho to enforce ban on sex changes for minors 

The Supreme Court on Monday allowed Idaho to enforce a ban on gender-changing medical procedures for minors as litigation over the law plays out. 

Liberal Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson opposed the conservative majority’s opinion, which granted Idaho a stay from a lower court ruling that blocked the state’s Vulnerable Child Protection Act from taking effect. 

The legislation, signed into law by Republican Gov. Brad Little last April, threatens physicians with felony charges punishable by up to 10 years in prison if they perform mastectomies, penectomies and other surgical procedures on minors for the purpose of gender transition. 

Providing transgender youth with puberty blockers or hormones is also prohibited under the new law, which was slated to go into effect on Jan. 1 until District Court Judge Lynn Winmill blocked the law last December. 

Justice Neil Gorsuch ruled that Winmill’s injunction went too far, and should’ve only been applied to the parties to the lawsuit. 

“Ordinarily, injunctions like these may go no further than necessary to provide interim relief to the parties,” Gorsuch wrote in his opinion. 

“In this case, however, the district court went much further, prohibiting a State from enforcing any aspect of its duly enacted law against anyone,” he added. “Today, the Court stays the district court’s injunction to the extent it applies to nonparties, which is to say to the extent it provides ‘universal’ relief.” 

The stay of the district court’s order  does not apply to the two transgender teenage plaintiffs in the case, who are being represented by the American Civil Liberties Union.

“While the Court’s ruling today importantly does not touch upon the constitutionality of this law, it is nonetheless an awful result for transgender youth and their families across the state,” the ACLU of Idaho said in a statement.

“Today’s ruling allows the state to shut down the care that thousands of families rely on while sowing further confusion and disruption. Nonetheless, today’s result only leaves us all the more determined to defeat this law in the courts entirely, making Idaho a safer state to raise every family,” the statement concluded. 

Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador celebrated the high court’s decision. 

“This is a BIG win to protect vulnerable kids!” he wrote on X. 

“Our state has a duty to protect and support all children,” Labrador added. “ I’m proud to defend Idaho’s law that ensures children are not subjected to these dangerous drugs and procedures.”

Idaho had sought emergency relief from the Supreme Court while the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit considers the transgender plaintiffs’ lawsuit against the state. 

More than 20 states have outlawed so-called gender-affirming care for minors with gender dysphoria.