The Justice Department is not asking the Supreme Court to invent a new right. It is asking the Court to let parents into court.
On 17 September 2026, the official Justice Department account posted the United States’ merits-stage amicus brief in International Partners for Ethical Care, Inc. v. Bob Ferguson, No. 25-840. Solicitor General D. John Sauer is counsel of record. The United States supports the petitioners. The brief is dated September 2026. This is not a Supreme Court ruling.
Washington’s 2023 shelter statute, as the brief describes it: when a runaway minor arrives at a licensed shelter seeking what the statute calls “gender-affirming treatment,” the shelter no longer has to notify the parents. It notifies the Department of Children, Youth, and Families instead. DCYF “shall” offer to refer that child for “appropriate behavioral health services” — without first notifying the parents, and regardless of their consent. Wash. Rev. Code § 13.32A.082(3)(b). Washington already lets minors 13 and older request outpatient treatment without parental consent. § 71.34.530. The brief and the statute use that clinic slogan. Washington defines it to include any service or product prescribed to “affirm” a so-called gender identity — the pipeline into sex-rejecting drugs and procedures.
What the Ninth Circuit held. The district court dismissed. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. Both said the parents lacked Article III standing because it was too “speculative” that their children would actually run away to a licensed shelter and take the State up on the offer.
What DOJ tells the Court. Parents have a here-and-now injury when a state circumvents parental control over medical services a child may access. They do not have to wait until the child has already been referred, treated, or harmed. The brief’s ask is narrow: vacate the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and remand. The Court has not ruled.
Read the brief. Then read the Justice Department’s post.
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