The US Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a California case involving Transgender individuals' rights to access medical care.

The justices' decision leaves in place an Appeals Court ruling against a Catholic hospital that refused to perform a hysterectomy on a Transgender man.

Evan Minton, the plaintiff in the original case, wished to have Mercy San Juan Medical Center in Sacramento perform the surgery. The hospital turned him away on the grounds that a hysterectomy constituted "elective sterilization" and therefore violated the hospital's ethical and religious obligations.

Minton had the procedure done at another local hospital three days later, and then sued Mercy San Juan under a California law that bars discrimination on the basis of gender identity.

The trial court ruled in favor of the hospital, saying that a three-day delay in the surgery did not constitute denial of "full and equal" access to health care.

A California State Appeals Court reversed the decision, however, and allowed Minton to ask for damages from the Catholic hospital.

The Supreme Court's decision not to hear the hospital's appeal leaves that ruling in place. As usual, the high court did not explain its reasoning in turning down a hearing.

Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch dissented, noting that they would have heard the case.

Gorsuch wrote the majority opinion in the 2020 case Bostock v. Clayton County that established civil rights protections for LGBTQ employees. In Bostock, the high court ruled that the ban on discrimination based on "sex" in Title VII of the US Civil Rights Act includes sexual orientation and gender identity.

Since that decision, the court has declined to relitigate LGBTQ rights issues. In June it declined to hear an appeal from a Virginia school district that wanted to reinstate its policy that students use restrooms corresponding to the sex assigned them at birth, rather than their gender identities.

Transgender student Gavin Grimm had fought in courts for six years to overturn the district's policy and had hoped the court would pass on hearing the appeal, allowing previous court decisions to stand.