The Supreme Court Case on Trans Care Ruled Against My Daughter

There is something incredibly surreal about finding your family at the center of a landmark Supreme Court decision, from the robes and the formality to the long, red velvet curtains behind the justices. No mother imagines that her everyday fight to do right by her child would land her there.

My daughter, L.W., came out as transgender late in 2020. She was just shy of 13. Four and a half years later, she is thriving, healthy and happy after pursuing evidence-based gender-affirming care. But the very care that is improving her life became a primary political target of the Republican supermajority in our home state, Tennessee. When the legislature banned my daughter’s care in 2023, we fought back by suing the state. Today, we found out that we lost that case when the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3, to uphold Tennessee’s ban on such care.

I am beside myself. Our heartfelt plea was not enough. The compelling, expert legal arguments by our lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal were not enough. I had to face my daughter and tell her that our last hope is gone. She’s angry, scared and hurt that the American system of democracy that we so put on a pedestal didn’t work to protect her.

My family did not start this journey to land in Washington in front of that white marble hall of justice. We ended up there through parental and civic duty. My and my husband’s demands in our lawsuit against the ban felt quite basic: Let us do our job as parents. Let us love and care for our daughter in the best way we and our doctors know how. Don’t let our child’s very existence be a political wedge issue. Being a teenager is hard enough. Being a parent of a teenager is hard enough.

Raising a transgender kid in Tennessee, we know that not everyone understands people like her or her health care — and that’s OK. We don’t need to agree on everything. But we do need our fundamental rights respected.

I have devoted myself to finding our daughter consistent care in one state after another. The nightmare of our disrupted life pales in comparison to the nightmare of losing access to the health care that has allowed our daughter to thrive. After Tennessee passed its ban, we traveled to another provider in a different state. After that state passed a ban, we moved on to another one. We are now on our fourth state. The five-hour drive each way, taking time off work and school, is hard, but thankfully, we found a clinic and pharmacy that take our insurance.