Our amicus brief filed today urges the Supreme Court to review a Fourth Circuit decision ordering West Virginia Medicaid to pay for gender transition procedures. The opinion was based on modern transgender ideology, finding no difference between removal of cancerous tissue and removing healthy body parts. The Fourth Circuit based its decision on that court’s Grimm v. Gloucester Co. School Board case — a case in which our firm filed four amicus briefs to prevent a girl from accessing the boys restroom. Now that seemingly innocuous (and erroneous) precedent is being badly misused.
The circuit court relied on Standards of Care of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (“WPATH”), but in recent months, an abundance of evidence has surfaced that WPATH is an advocacy group, not an independent medical organization. Even the American Society of Plastic Surgeons rescinded its support for and is reassessing its position on transgender surgery. There was no justification to expand the Equal Protection Clause to require dangerous and irreversible procedures to make persons suffering a type of mental disorder feel better about themselves.