US appeals court rejects challenge to Washington laws on transgender youth care

By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) -A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a constitutional challenge by parents in Washington state to laws addressing the rights of transgender runaway children who seek gender-affirming care at shelters.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said two anti-transgender nonprofits and several parents whose teenage children exhibited signs of gender dysphoria, but were not now runaways, lacked legal standing to sue because they could not prove present or future injuries.

Lawyers for the parents and the nonprofits International Partners for Ethical Care and Advocates Protecting Children did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The plaintiffs targeted a 2023 state law excusing shelters from notifying parents whose children sought “gender-affirming treatment” and “reproductive health services,” when the shelters feared notification could lead to parental abuse or neglect.

They also objected to laws governing outpatient treatment without parental consent, and the obligations of state health officials to work with parents with runaway children.

In a 3-0 decision, Circuit Judge Milan Smith rejected the parents’ claims that the laws forced them to alter their parenting styles or censor themselves when talking with their children, saying it was their choice to do both.

He also found no showing of future injury because there was no imminent threat the parents’ children would run away, and said the nonprofits lacked “associational” standing because they had no members with standing on their own.

The parents had said Washington’s laws violated their rights to free speech and free exercise of religion, by impeding their ability to communicate with their children about gender issues and raise them in their faith, under the U.S. Constitution.

In a statement, the office of Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, which defended the law, said: “We are pleased that the court saw through this politicized attempt to create a case where none existed.”

Friday’s decision upheld a May 2024 dismissal by U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan in Tacoma, Washington.

The case is International Partners for Ethical Care Inc v Ferguson et al, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, No. 24-3661.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New YorkEditing by Nick Zieminski and Diane Craft)