AMA Releases Statement Against Ruling Limiting Gender Affirming Care for Minors

The American Medical Association has released a statement on the United States v. Skrmetti Supreme Court case.

News came this Wednesday that the Supreme Court ruled to uphold a Tennessee law that “bars doctors from providing gender-affirming care including puberty blockers, hormones, and surgical procedures for trans minors in the state,” according to Time. The ruling specifically “permits the at least 25 bans that states have passed against medical and surgical care for transgender youth.”

The AMA voiced their disappointment in the decision, signaling that it “opens the door to further intrusion into patient care and harmful government interference into the practice of medicine.” They urge that “decisions about medical treatment must be made through a shared decision-making process between the patient and their physician, based on individual patient needs and in accordance with medical evidence and the standards of good medical practice. The AMA opposes efforts by the government to insert itself into the patient-physician relationship and interfere in clinical decision-making with no regard for the clinical standards of care.”

A 2024 peer-reviewed study “in Nature Human Behaviour in collaboration with Trevor Project researchers found that anti-transgender state laws caused an uptick in suicide attempts among transgender youth by as much as 72%.” Gender-affirming care is “espoused as a medically accepted treatment by every major medical association in the U.S.”