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The Center Square [By Kim Jarrett] –
Just over a month after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors, the U.S. Department of Justice formally dropped its challenge.
The American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal filed a lawsuit on behalf of families they said would be affected by the law, saying it violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Supreme Court rejected their claim in a 6-3 decision.
The Tennessee Legislature “found that minors lack the maturity to fully understand these consequences, that many individuals have expressed regret for undergoing such treatments as minors, and that the full effects of some treatments may not be known,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
The plaintiffs dismissed their complaint after the Supreme Court ruling, but that did not terminate the intervention filed during the Biden administration, the Justice Department said Monday.
“The United States today undid one of the injustices the Biden administration inflicted upon the country by dismissing a lawsuit against a Tennessee law that protects minors from invasive and mutilating procedures,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in a statement. “The Justice Department will continue to fight to protect the health and welfare of our children and defend states that seek to ban these barbaric practices.”
