Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Wednesday urged courts to stop deferring to "experts" on gender care, saying they have appeared to "have compromised their credibility."

"This case carries a simple lesson: In politically contentious debates over matters shrouded in scientific uncertainty, courts should not assume that self-described experts are correct," Thomas said in a concurring opinion in the high court's 6-3 decision to upheld Tennessee's ban on gender care for transgender minors in United States v. Skrmetti.

"Deference to legislatures, not experts, is particularly critical here. Many prominent medical professionals have declared a consensus around the efficacy of treating children's gender dysphoria with puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and surgical interventions, despite mounting evidence to the contrary," Thomas said.

"They have dismissed grave problems undercutting the assumption that young children can consent to irreversible treatments that may deprive them of their ability to eventually produce children of their own. They have built their medical determinations on concededly weak evidence. And, they have surreptitiously compromised their medical recommendations to achieve political ends."

The court's 6-3 decision effectively protects from legal challenges many efforts by President Donald Trump's Republican administration and state governments to roll back protections for transgender people. Another 26 states have laws similar to Tennessee's.

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