Does Tennessee’s Law Banning Gender-Affirming Care for Minors Violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment?
The Equal Protection Clause prohibits a state from “denying to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” That language “was not designed to compel uniformity in the face of difference,” Whitney v. State Tax Commission (1940), or to “forbid classifications” entirely. — Nordlinger v. Hahn (1992). Rather, it “keeps governmental decisionmakers from treating differently persons who are in all relevant respects alike.”
