Parents Don’t Have ‘Deeply Rooted’ Right To Trans Their Kids, Appeals Courts Find
Katelynn Richardson | Daily Caller News Foundation | August 12, 2025
A federal appeals court found Tuesday that banning child sex changes does not violate parents’ rights, days after another court came to the same conclusion.
The full Eight Circuit Court of Appeals reversed an injunction blocking Arkansas’ ban on sex changes procedures for minors Tuesday in an 8-2 decision. Oklahoma’s ban was likewise upheld by the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals on Aug. 6.
Both cases cite the Supreme Court’s ruling in United States v. Skrmetti, which found Tennessee’s similar law did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The appeals courts went further by rejecting parental rights claims not addressed in the Supreme Court’s ruling. (RELATED: Justice Thomas Bluntly Chastises Judges For Blind Faith In ‘Self-Described Experts’)
“Given the two parallel currents in this Nation’s history and tradition—first, states can prohibit medical treatments for adults and children, and second, parents cannot automatically exempt their children from regulations—this court does not find a deeply rooted right of parents to exempt their children from regulations reasonably prohibiting gender transition procedures,” the Eight Circuit majority held.
The Tenth Circuit held that “our Nation does not have a deeply rooted history of affirmative access to medical treatment the government reasonably prohibited, regardless of the parent-child relationship.”
“I applaud the court’s decision and am pleased that children in Arkansas will be protected from experimental procedures,” Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin wrote on X.