The Supreme Court will hold a hearing Wednesday in an appeal over transgender rights that could be the court’s most important case.
The legal question in the case, called United States v. Skrmetti, is whether a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors violates the Constitution’s equal protection guarantee. How the court answers the question could affect similar laws across the country and the rights of transgender people more broadly.
Three lawyers will argue before the judges in Washington. U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar represents the federal government and Tennessee Solicitor General J. Matthew Rice represents the state, whose attorney general is Jonathan Skrmetti (hence the name of the case, United States v. Skrmetti) . Attorney Chase Strangio of the American Civil Liberties Union represents the original plaintiffs in the lawsuit: transgender adolescents, their parents and a doctor who treats adolescents with gender dysphoria. Strangio will be the first openly transgender attorney to argue before the court.
It is not unusual for more than two parties to argue in a case. But the dynamic here could be especially important because the incoming Trump administration could take a different position than the Biden administration, which intervened in the lawsuit against the state law. So it’s possible that the group representing Strangio will be the only hostile party in Tennessee when the justices ultimately rule on the case, if the federal government tells the court it no longer disagrees with the state after Trump adds next month power comes.
A ruling is expected by the summer, when the court typically completes rulings on cases heard during the hearing that began in October.
For now, at least, the federal government is against the state. Arguing that the law, called SB1, is unconstitutionally discriminatory, Prelogar’s office wrote in a brief letter before the hearing that, under the law:
…an adolescent assigned female at birth cannot be given puberty blockers or testosterone to live as a man, but an adolescent assigned male at birth can. And that focus on sex and gender conformity is intentional: SB1 states that the intention is precisely to “encourage[e] minors to appreciate their sex” and to prohibit treatments “that could induce minors to despise their sex.”
“That,” the federal government argues, “is sex discrimination.”
The state defended the law, writing in its own letter that it “is not unconstitutional discrimination to say that drugs can be prescribed for one reason but not for another.” The state further argued that the law does not classify people based on gender, but rather “creates two groups: minors seeking drugs for gender transition and minors seeking drugs for other medical purposes.”
Like the federal government, the private parties represented by Strangio argue that the law “imposes differential treatment based on the sex an individual is assigned at birth.” To support their position, they cite the Supreme Court’s 2020 ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County, which says an employer violates federal civil rights law when it fires someone for being gay or transgender.
This 6-3 ruling was notably authored by Trump appointee Neil Gorsuch and joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, so these justices’ questions during the hearing will be among the most important to pay attention to.
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This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
