Trump changes the government’s position on the pending trans healthcare case before Supreme Court
SCOTUS NEWS
The Trump Administration notified the Supreme Court on Friday that, in their view, a Tennessee statute banning the use or hormone therapy and puberty blocking agents for transgender children does not violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equality protection. The lawsuit was filed by three transgender teenagers and their parents in order to challenge the state officials who enforced the ban. They argued that the law, known as SB1, violates the Constitution because it prohibits doctors from prescribing puberty blockers and hormone therapy to affirm the gender identity of transgender teens but allows the use of the same treatments for other purposes.
The Biden administration joined the case, relying on a federal law that allows it to do so in cases involving equal protection “if the Attorney General certifies that the case is of general public importance.”
After a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit upheld the ban, both the Biden administration and the families came to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to weigh in. The justices granted the Biden administration petition for review, which focused on equal protection, but a lawyer representing the families also spoke on their behalf on December 4. The office of the U.S. Solicitor general, the government’s leading lawyer at the Supreme Court, broke with this tradition in both the first Trump and Biden administrations, and reversed course in several cases. On Jan. 28, Donald Trump issued an Executive Order restricting gender affirming care for transgender persons under the age 19 years. Gannon continued that the Department of Justice “has now determined that SB1 does not deny equal protection,” and it “would not have intervened to challenge” the law — “let alone sought” Supreme Court review of the 6th Circuit’s decision upholding the law. Gannon argued that the case should not be dismissed because the justices “promptly resolution” of the equal protection issue “will have an impact on many cases pending before lower courts.” The families are still on the other side of the dispute than the state officials. Therefore, he concluded, the Supreme Court can decide the equal protection issue without having to grant the families’ petition for review or seeking “further, likely duplicative briefing from the same parties about the same court of appeals judgment in the underlying suit between the private plaintiffs and the state respondents.”
A decision in the case is expected by summer.
This article was originally published at Howe on the Court.
