A federal appeals court has rejected a challenge to Washington State’s laws protecting the rights of minors, particularly transgender minors.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled Friday that two anti-trans organizations and five sets of parents did not have legal standing to challenge the laws, as they have not shown they were harmed by the statutes or that they were likely to be.
The decision affirms U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan’s May 2024 dismissal of the lawsuit brought by International Partners for Ethical Care, Advocates Protecting Children, and the parents.
The two organizations “are national nonprofits that share a commitment to ‘stop[ping] the unethical treatment of children by schools, hospitals, and mental and medical healthcare providers under the duplicitous banner of gender identity affirmation,’” as Judge Milan D. Smith Jr. described them in the unanimous opinion. The parents all have children who have shown signs of gender dysphoria. They named Washington’s governor, attorney general, and secretary of the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families as defendants.
The plaintiffs challenged three laws. One enacted in 1985 allows minors to receive outpatient care without parental consent. A 2023 law that lets shelters forego notifying parents if a minor resident is seeking gender-affirming care or reproductive health care and contact the Washington Department of Children, Youth, and Families instead. That agency is then tasked with resolving the conflict between the minor and their parents and offering to refer the minor to appropriate behavioral health services. Another 2023 law sets rules for the agency on family notification and creates a pathway for certain minors to stay in licensed shelters for up to 90 days without parental permission.
The plaintiffs claimed that the laws forced parents to change how they interact with their children and censor their constitutionally protected speech, while keeping them from accessing information about their children. But the judges held that that the laws don’t force these changes on the parents; instead, they have changed their parenting styles and speech voluntarily in reaction to the laws. Also, the panel said, even when children receive services without parents’ consent, the parents still have access to information about those services. Therefore, the parents and organizations haven’t shown they’ve been injured by the statutes or that they are likely to be harmed by them in the future, the judges found.
International Partners for Ethical Care claimed standing to challenge the laws because one of its members is a Washington parent of a child with gender dysphoria. But again, the judges saw no evidence of current or future harm.
“We agree with the district court that Plaintiffs have failed to demonstrate standing … and we affirm the dismissal of their action,” Smith’s opinion concluded.
Washington Attorney General Nick Brown issued a statement saying, “We are pleased that the court saw through this politicized attempt to create a case where none existed,” Reuters reports.
This article originally appeared on Advocate: Appeals court rejects anti-trans challenge to Washington State’s laws protecting minors’ rights