The Supreme Court’s devastating anti-trans ruling in U.S. v. Skrmetti continues to impact court challenges to state-level bans on gender-affirming care for minors, most recently in Oklahoma.

This week, a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit cited Skrmetti in its decision to reject a challenge to Oklahoma’s ban on gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth, according to the Advocate.

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Signed into law by Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) in 2023, S.B. 613 bans all forms of this lifesaving health care – including reversible puberty blockers – for anyone under the age of 18. It forces trans minors currently receiving such care to de-transition over a six-month period. The law also makes it a felony for doctors to provide this care to trans youth and allows prosecution of health care professionals until their patients turn 45, and also potential civil penalties, including the loss of their medical licenses.

The same week Stitt signed the law, Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the law firm Jenner & Block LLP filed a lawsuit on behalf of five Oklahoma families with transgender teens and Dr. Shauna Lawlis of the University of Oklahoma, who provided gender-affirming care. The lawsuit argued that S.B. 613 “unjustly and unfairly targets [the plaintiffs] and gender-affirming health care in violation” of the Constitution’s Fourteenth Amendment, which protects citizens from unequal application of laws.

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In October of 2023, a Republican-appointed district court judge in the state denied the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction banning the law from going into effect while the courts considered their lawsuit.

The plaintiffs appealed the decision, but the 10th Circuit delayed its ruling in the case until after the Supreme Court’s decision in Skrmetti.

In June, the high court ruled in a 6–3 decision along ideological lines that a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors experiencing gender dysphoria does not violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause by discriminating on the basis of sex or transgender status, as plaintiffs in the case argued.

Writing for the three-judge panel this week in the Oklahoma case, Judge Joel M. Carson III said that the court had relied on the Skrmetti decision in affirming the lower court’s denial of a preliminary injunction.

In a joint statement Thursday, Lambda Legal, the American Civil Liberties Union, and the ACLU of Oklahoma said that this week’s ruling “is a devastating outcome for transgender youth and their families across Oklahoma and another tragic result of the Supreme Court’s errant and harmful ruling in Skrmetti.”

“Oklahoma’s ban is openly discriminatory and provably harmful to the transgender youth of this state, putting political dogma above parents, their children, and their family doctors,” the statement continued. “While we and our clients consider our next steps, we want all transgender people and their families across Oklahoma to know we will never stop fighting for the future they deserve and their freedom to be themselves.”

The Skrmetti ruling allows 25 states to enforce bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors and serves as precedent in other cases involving trans people’s rights under the Fourteenth Amendment. Already, the Supreme Court has ordered appellate court judges in San Francisco, Denver, and Richmond, Virginia, to reconsider previous rulings that found that state laws and policies in Idaho, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and West Virginia violated trans people’s right to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.

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