U.S. Justice Dept Launches Court Action To Stop GOP’s Targeting Of LGBTQ+ Kids

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The federal Justice Department, led by Biden pick Merrick Garland, is challenging new restrictions from Tennessee Republicans that block minors in the state from receiving gender-affirming care, as it’s known. Alongside abortion and other established options in reproductive healthcare, gender-affirming treatment has become a primary target of Republican state officials.

In Tennessee, the Justice Department describes the challenged restrictions, which are styled to take effect at the beginning of July, as denying minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria the opportunity to receive license-based and supervised assistance — while other minors and people in other age groups can receive what the department also described as much the same kind of care, when it’s outside the context of a patient who is transgender. As such, authorities are alleging violations in the restrictions on rights under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection — a right that doesn’t end when Republicans in power become more opposed to how certain people are living. A press release from the Justice Department also spotlighted the established healthcare authority on which gender-affirming care generally rests. It’s not some kind of free-for-all or treated in fundamentally more open terms than other options across the U.S. healthcare system.

“SB1 violates the constitutional rights of some of Tennessee’s most vulnerable citizens,” U.S. Attorney Henry Leventis, serving in the Middle District of Tennessee, said. “Left unchallenged, it would prohibit transgender children from receiving health care that their medical providers and their parents have determined to be medically necessary. In doing so, the law seeks to substitute the judgment of trained medical professionals and parents with that of elected officials and codifies discrimination against children who already face far too many obstacles.” Other avenues of affront against transgender minors and adults have included restrictions on sports participation and legislative attacks on opportunities to pay for care. Read more at this link.