A federal appeals court ruled Friday that states can allow transgender youths to seek physical and mental health care without notifying their parents. James M. Shannon/Hearst Connecticut Media

States can prohibit puberty blockers and other gender-affirming care for transgender minors, the Supreme Court decided last month, a ruling upholding laws in about half the nation’s states. But a federal appeals court ruled Friday that states can allow transgender youths to seek physical and mental health care without notifying their parents.

One law in Washington state, enacted in 1985, allows minors age 13 and older to receive outpatient care without parental consent. Two laws passed by the state in 2023 apply to shelters for youths who have left home, and do not require parents of transgender youths to be notified of their presence if it would expose the youths to ”abuse or neglect.”

The laws were challenged by five sets of parents and two nonprofits, International Partners for Ethical Care and Advocates Protecting Children, which said their goal was to end “the unethical treatment of children by schools, hospitals, and mental and medical healthcare providers under the duplicitous banner of gender identity affirmation.”

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But the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said neither the parents nor the nonprofits had shown they are being harmed by the laws, so they lack legal standing to challenge those laws.

As a federal judge concluded earlier in the case, their alleged injuries were based on a “speculative chain of possibilities,” Judge Milan Smith wrote in Friday’s 3-0 ruling. He said there was no evidence that any of the parents’ children were about to run away to a shelter that would refuse to notify the child’s parents.

The suit also contended the laws were forcing parents to censor their speech, making them too fearful to discuss gender with their children. One woman said she has had to stop referring to her 13-year-old child in public by her female birth name for fear of upsetting the child, who might run away from home.

But the laws “do not regulate speech,” Smith said. “They set forth rules and systems pertaining to the rights and privileges of Washington minors, and they have no bearing on whether and to what extent (parents) are permitted to speak about topics, such as gender, with or around their children.”

Smith was appointed to the court by President George W. Bush. The ruling was joined by Judges Sidney Thomas, an appointee of President Bill Clinton, and Daniel Bress, appointed by President Donald Trump. The ruling they upheld had been issued by U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan, appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

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Later Friday, Trump issued a statement declaring success in his campaign to “end child sexual mutilation,” his term for transgender medical care. He listed 17 health care institutions that have restricted or halted such care for patients under 19, including Stanford Medicine, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and the nationwide Kaiser Permanente chain based in Oakland.

Federal courts are also considering challenges by parents and conservative groups to a California law that took effect this year and requires schools to obtain consent from a minor before notifying parents that the youth has asked to use a different name or pronoun than those they were given at birth.

In April, another 9th Circuit panel reinstated a lawsuit by a mother in Chico (Butte County) who had not been told her 11-year-old child had identified as transgender. The court did not say the woman’s rights had been violated, however, and instead set guidelines for the federal judge who will hear the case.

The appeals court noted in that case that the Supreme Court has upheld “the fundamental right of parents to make decisions concerning the care, custody, and control of their children.” But that right “is not unlimited,” the panel said, and the judge must consider U.S. “history and tradition” and “the concept of ordered liberty” in weighing the competing claims of parental authority and children’s privacy.

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In response to Friday’s ruling, Ashley Gross, spokesperson for Washington Attorney General Nick Brown, said, “We are pleased that the court saw through this politicized attempt to create a case where none existed.”