The State of Tennessee is vowing to defend its law against child sex changes from a Biden administration challenge, floating an aggressive legal theory that could hold medical providers to account even if a federal judge imposes the injunction sought by the White House.

The law, S.B. 1, was triggered in part by The Daily Wire’s September 2022 exposes on Vanderbilt University Medical Center’s (VUMC) genital mutilation of children, which top doctors acknowledged were “big money makers” and were done “with little evidence, but a lot of love.” The state law is scheduled to take effect July 1, but the Biden administration joined the ACLU and several teenage plaintiffs suing to stop it and is now seeking the injunction in order to block its enforcement until a judge rules on the case.

Adam Mortara, an outside attorney hired to argue the case for Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, a Republican, said in a May 19 brief that even if a judge imposes an injunction, VUMC should resume treatments at its own peril because if the injunction is later overturned, the state may retroactively prosecute it.