Tennessee AG optimistic about SCOTUS case after 'radical gender ideology' reversal in lower court
Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti is cautiously optimistic about the future success of his Supreme Court gender case after he secured another legal win in Kentucky that will reverse the Biden administration's Title IX rewrite nationwide.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky Northern Division made the ruling in Cardona v. Tennessee on Thursday.
Skrmetti told Fox News Digital in a Tuesday interview, "Every win we get is another break in the wall of ensuring that the law means what the people who voted for it thought it meant."
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The ruling came months after the Supreme Court rejected the Biden administration’s emergency request to enforce portions of a new rule that would have included protections from discrimination for transgender students under Title IX.
The sweeping rule was issued in April and clarified that Title IX’s ban on "sex" discrimination in schools covered discrimination based on gender identity, sexual orientation and "pregnancy or related conditions."
The rule took effect Aug. 1, 2024, and the law stated, for the first time, that discrimination based on sex includes conduct related to a person’s gender identity.
"The Title IX rule was the height of overreach, administrative overreach by the Biden administration, and we were very happy to be able to stop that," Skrmetti said on Tuesday.
Now, he is looking ahead to the court's highly anticipated decision in the United States v. Skrmetti case, which is expected by June.
The Supreme Court is weighing whether the equal protection clause, which guarantees equal treatment under the law for individuals in similar circumstances, prevents states from banning medical providers from offering puberty blockers and hormone treatments to children seeking transgender surgical procedures.
The lawsuit against Tennessee's law banning transgender treatment for minors was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several transgender minors and their parents. The families argue the law infringes on parental rights to make medical decisions for their kids and forces them to go out-of-state to receive transgender procedures.
"It seems like the momentum has really shifted almost culturally on these issues," Skrmetti said. "And when you see people trying to rewrite laws through creative judging, through creative regulating, that alienates the people from the laws that bind them, and it's bad for America."
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Skrmetti described the recent developments as part of a broader "vibe shift" in the country, noting that they reflect a "great data point" indicating a decline in efforts to reshape American law through "non-democratic" processes.
"We'll know what the Supreme Court does when the Supreme Court does it," he said.
Fox News Digital's Ryan Gaydos contributed to this report.