Texas doctors' lawsuit against the Biden administration over transgender policy is halted by appeals court.

This week, a federal appeals court ruled against Texas doctors who attempted to sue President Biden's administration over its transgender policies.

The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the doctors lacked standing to sue, as they had not violated the policy or faced any threat of enforcement.

The Biden administration's healthcare policy prohibits discrimination against transgender individuals. However, a recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk reversed a previous decision in favor of doctors.

In 2021, the Health and Human Services Department of the Biden administration made a rule change, interpreting a section of the Affordable Care Act that prohibited discrimination based on sex to also include transgender individuals. However, three doctors from Texas disagreed with this interpretation, arguing that it exceeded the text of the law.

The doctors contended that the policy might compel them to administer treatments they do not concur with. They gave instances such as prostate cancer in a transgender woman, which would necessitate treatment based on the individual's biological sex.

The Supreme Court has ruled on transgender policy, including whether state bans on transgender surgeries for minors are constitutional, just weeks after hearing arguments in its own case on the matter.

The conservative justices on the Supreme Court appeared hesitant to overturn the Tennessee law in question during oral arguments. Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Kavanaugh suggested that state legislatures, rather than courts, are better suited to regulate medical procedures. The Constitution leaves such questions to the people's representatives, Roberts noted, rather than to nine justices on the Supreme Court, none of whom are doctors.

Justice Alito, on the other hand, relied on "strong evidence" from specific medical research indicating the adverse effects of gender transition treatments on adolescents. If the justices vote according to party lines to uphold the lower court's ruling, it will have far-reaching consequences for more than 20 U.S. states that have enacted similar legislation.

The Biden administration and the ACLU represented petitioners in a lawsuit to challenge a Tennessee law, which sought to overturn the law on behalf of the parents of three transgender adolescents and a Memphis-based doctor.

The constitutionality of state bans on transgender medical treatment for minors, such as SB1, was the main topic of discussion during Wednesday's oral arguments. The question at hand was whether these laws should be subject to a higher level of scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution due to their potential discrimination against a "quasi-suspect class" or on the basis of sex.

Planet Chronicle' Breanne Deppisch and Reuters contributed to this report.