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On Tuesday, we saw some of the earliest fallout from the Supreme Court’s decision earlier this summer in United States v. Skrmetti that allowed a Tennessee law that blocks health care for trans minors to go into effect. The new ruling hit neighboring Arkansas, but it actually covers a wide swath of the country, expands on the ruling in Skrmetti, embraces that decision’s indifference toward the health and safety of trans children, and inflicts grave harm on numerous families across the Midwest.

In Tuesday’s ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit released a 8–2 decision in Brandt v. Griffin, holding that Arkansas’ ban on gender-affirming care for minors survives three different challenges to its constitutionality. In part, this en banc ruling followed Skrmetti, in which the Supreme Court’s conservative supermajority held that a similar ban does not violate the equal protection clause because it does not classify based on transgender status or sex, thus surviving the minimal evaluation standard of rational basis review. However, in Skrmetti, the court denied a petition by minors and their parents that argued the ban also infringes on parental rights protected under the due process clause. Moreover, no one has argued that the Tennessee ban conflicts with the freedom of speech of health care providers protected under the First Amendment. Now, the highly conservative 8th Circuit went beyond Skrmetti, dismissing those two additional challenges brought by parents and doctors.

The 8th Circuit’s decision demonstrates a rising distorted........

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