Supreme Court updates: Justices clash over transgender health care for minors

The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a major case over transgender health care for minors. The case focuses on Tennessee's ban on the treatment for minors in the state.

The court’s conservative justices hammered over and over why courts – and not state legislatures – should be deciding whether states can prevent transgender adolescents from using puberty blockers and hormone therapy.

“Wouldn’t this be endless litigation based on determinations by lay judges regarding complicated medical issues?” Justice Samuel Alito asked lawyers representing families challenging Tennessee’s ban.

Supreme Court takeaways: What we learned from oral arguments in transgender care case

That elicited concern from the court’s liberal justices that the court is giving short shrift to the Constitution’s promise that people be equally treated under the law.

“I guess I’m suddenly quite worried about the role of the court questions and the constitutional allocation of authority concerns,” Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said after about two hours of oral arguments.

Here are the latest updates from the debate:

Skrmetti: Tennessee law regulates 'regardless of sex'

Speaking to reporters outside the court, Tennessee Attorney General John Skrmetti called gender transition drugs "unproven life altering procedures based on uncertain science."

"The law does not target on the basis of sex. It regulates regardless of sex," he said.

The Constitution "does not require legal absurdity in response to biological differences," he added, referencing the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who he called "the greatest feminist" in the court's history.

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

Strangio: 'Constitution protects trans people'

ACLU attorney Chase Strangio told reporters he was "honored" to represent plaintiffs who, "for their suffering children, made decisions that were best for their family, the recommendations of their doctors, only to have those decisions displaced by the government of Tennessee."

Strangio said plaintiffs' best case was already written into Tennessee law, which dictates, "We, the government of Tennessee, want you to appreciate your sex."

"The Constitution protects trans people, just like it protects everyone else," Strangio said.

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

Oral arguments in high-profile case conclude

Oral arguments on the case – the most high-profile issue the court is considering this term – ended after about two and a half hours.

A decision is expected by summer.

But the opinion could get sidetracked if, as expected, the incoming Trump administration notifies the court next year that the Justice Department is no longer challenging Tennessee’s ban.

If that happens, it’s unclear if the court will drop the case, order new arguments or issue an opinion based on what the justices heard today.

--Maureen Groppe

Supreme Court whiplash: What Trump's win means for guns and transgender care

DOJ: Tennessee's law has 'real world consequences'

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar tried to give the last word to the adolescents challenging Tennessee’s ban.

In her closing remarks, she urged the court to take into account the “real world consequences” of upholding the ban.

Before taking the treatments, she said, one of the adolescents was so distressed that he threw up before school every day.

“His parents say he’s now thriving, but Tennessee has come in and categorically cut off access to Ryan's to his care," she said. “They say this is about protecting adolescent health, but this law harms Ryan's health and the health of all other transgender adolescents for whom these medications are a necessity.”

--Maureen Groppe

Tennessee law doesn’t restrict care based on sex: lawyer

Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice disputed Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s comparison of his state banning transgender care for minors to Virginia’s earlier prohibition against interracial marriage.

Brown Jackson had said the court ruled an earlier Virginia prohibition against white residents marrying Black residents or Black residents marrying white residents still boiled down to a racial restriction. She argued Tennessee’s ban on transgender care represented a sex classification despite applying to both boys and girls.

But Rice said the prohibition was based on the purpose for medication rather than the sex of the patient. He said a boy could use puberty blockers to prevent precocious puberty, but not to use them to transition.

“That is not a sex-based line, it is a purpose-based line,” Rice said. “The only way to get to a sex-based line is by equating fundamentally different treatments that defy medical reality and defy how the statute itself sets out treatment.”

--Bart Jansen

Kagan presses Tennessee on law's goal

Justice Elena Kagan pushed Tennessee’s lawyers on the law’s stated goal of encouraging minors to appreciate their sex assigned at birth.

The basis of the law, she said, seems to be that there’s something fundamentally wrong about youths wanting to transition.

“Sounds to me like we want boys to be boys, and we want girls to be girls,” she said.

Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice said the law’s reference to a minor appreciating their sex was a recognition that some people regret the treatments.

So there’s a legitimate purpose, he said, to giving minors time to appreciate their sex at birth.

--Maureen Groppe

Pro-ban gay protester: puberty blockers are ‘new conversion therapy’

Standing outside the court on Wednesday morning, Buzz Webb held a sign reading, “I am a child desister… puberty and my mom cured my gender confusion.”

As a child, Webb, who is gay, had feelings of gender dysphoria. But her parents let her be herself, and when puberty hit, they dissipated, she said.

“I don't know what 57-year-old me would look like today if I had been given puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones and unnecessary surgeries,” she said.

Webb, of North Carolina, said she is concerned that most kids prescribed puberty blockers are same-sex attracted.

“This is the new conversion therapy,” she said.

“I would have been that kid. I would have been begging for it,” she said of the medications.

Looking back, she’s grateful she never took them.

“I'm here for my seven year old self, and I'm here for my mom and dad, who love me unconditionally,” she said.

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

‘Fed up’ with transphobia

The Wednesday morning rally in front of the U.S. Supreme Court wasn’t the first trans rights protest that Nyx Tucci, 16, joined.

After a local police officer entered Tucci’s middle school in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, to search for a copy of the book “Gender Queer,” Tucci led a walkout. A custodian at the school reported a teacher to authorities for possessing the book – the teacher later filed a suit.

“I have been fed up with the idea that transphobia, homophobia, racism, other, any kind of bigotry only happens in the South,” Tucci said. “It is not okay that it happens anywhere.”

Although Tucci, who is non-binary, has only transitioned socially, access to puberty blockers has impacted them personally.

“Someone very close to me online took their own life because they were not able to access medications that they needed,” Tucci said. “I do not want anyone else's life to be affected by this decision."

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

Transgender care for minors risky, Tennessee solicitor general says

In his opening remarks, Tennessee Solicitor General Matthew Rice said the state’s law protects minors from “risky, unproven medical interventions.”

And the state can do that, he said, while still allowing the treatments for nontransgender people, because the medical purposes are different.

“Just as using morphine to manage pain differs from using it to assist suicide,” he said. “Using hormones and puberty blockers to address a physical condition is far different from using it to address psychological distress associated with one’s body.”

The Constitution’s equal protection clause, he said, “does not require the states to blind themselves to medical reality, or to treat unlike things the same.”

--Maureen Groppe

Gorsuch key justice to watch

Justice Neil Gorsuch did not pose questions to either of the lawyers arguing against Tennessee’s law.

His view is one court watchers were most listening for because Gorsuch authored the 2020 decision barring workplace discrimination against transgender and gay employees under a federal civil rights law.

The two sides have different views about how relevant that 2020 decision is to this case.

--Maureen Groppe

Brown Jackson worried ruling against transgender treatment could undermine mixed-race marriages

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson worried that her fellow justices were suggesting transgender health care should be regulated by lawmakers rather than judges because she feared such a ruling could undermine precedents such as the one that allowed interracial marriage.

Brown Jackson said a bedrock principle of equal protection under the law is that there is a constitutional issue any time a legislature sets restrictions based on suspect classifications.

“I guess I’m suddenly quite worried about the role of the court questions and the constitutional allocation of authority concerns,” Brown Jackson said.

Brown Jackson said she was “getting kind of nervous” because scientific arguments against miscegenation were made before the court’s ruling allowing mixed-race marriages, in a 1967 case called Loving v. Virginia.

“I’m worried that we’re undermining the foundations of some of our bedrock equal protection cases,” she said.

ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio agreed.

“I share your concerns,” Strangio said

--Bart Jansen 

Boos break out as Marjorie Taylor Greene speaks outside court

Boos and jeers spread spread through the crowd outside the Supreme Court as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Georgia, spoke to demonstrators.

“Republicans are united in stopping the genital mutilation of children, the brainwashing of children in our education system,” she said as some demonstrators raised a middle finger toward her and others tried to drown her out with blasted music and noise.

She railed against gender transition care as “evil” and an “embarrassment” for the U.S.

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

Risks to both banning and allowing the treatment, Kavanaugh says

Justice Brett Kavanaugh said there are risks to both banning and allowing the treatment, putting justices in the difficult situation of determining which is better.

There’s no “perfect way out,” he said, where everyone benefits and no one is harmed.

Kavanaugh went back to his earlier point about why that choice isn’t better left in the hand of policymakers instead of judges.

ACLU attorney Chase Strangio said the court needs to assess whether Tennessee can justify taking the decision away from adolescents, their parents and their doctors.

--Maureen Groppe

Lawmakers, not judges should regulate medicine: Roberts

Chief Justice John Roberts sounded similar to Justice Brett Kavanaugh in observing the Constitution leaves it to lawmakers to regulate health policy rather than the nine justices of the high court, “none of whom is a doctor.”

“It seems to me that it is something where we are extraordinarily bereft of expertise,” Roberts said.

--Bart Jansen

Sotomayor asks why court should weigh in on case with scientific disputes

Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio why the high court should weigh in on the controversial subject of transgender health care, given what she called a plethora of scientific studies.

“You can hear from some of my colleagues that they are worried,” Sotomayor said. “What about the fundamental role of the court makes us suited to answer those questions.”

Strangio said when court cases deal with questions of science and medicine, judges can assess testimony before them.

“The role of the court is to ensure that when the government draws lines on suspect classifications, that the states are tested to ensure they are substantially advancing an important governmental interest,” Strangio said. “It is precisely the role of the court to ensure that the government of Tennessee has substantially advanced an important governmental interest.”

Justice Samuel Alito added to the conservative justices’ concerns that this issue is better left to legislative bodies than to courts. Even if the Supreme Court agrees that such bans require extra scrutiny, he said, that would lead to more debate about what limitations are or are not allowed.

“Wouldn’t this be endless litigation based on determinations by lay judges regarding complicated medical issues?” he asked.

Strangio said judges “are equipped to make those determinations as they do in many other contexts.”

--Bart Jansen and Maureen Groppe

Jackson likens Tennessee's arguments to racial classifications of the 1950s, 1960s

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the concerns being raised by the Tennessee legislature about gender-affirming care sound similar to arguments made in the 1950s and 1960s about racial classifications.

She wondered if there are parallels with Loving v. Virginia, the landmark Supreme Court decision that threw out that state’s law prohibiting interracial marriage.

And she suggested that Virginia’s ban might have survived if the state had made an argument similar to Tennessee’s.

“I wonder whether Virginia could have gotten away with what they did here by just making a classification argument, the way that Tennessee is in this case,” she said.

--Maureen Groppe

ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio makes history as first transgender lawyer at Supreme Court

The exchange was brief, but historic.

After U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar’s opening argument, Chief Justice John Roberts welcomed Chase Strangio, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, to contribute to the arguments. Strangio is the first transgender lawyer to practice before the high court.

“Mr. Strangio,” Roberts said, in the customary greeting.

“Mr. Chief Justice, and may it please the court,” Strangio said in the traditional response.

--Bart Jansen

Court not reviewing parental rights in this case: Justice Amy Coney Barrett

Justice Amy Coney Barrett asked whether U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar agreed with her that the case has no impact on parental rights, which the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals included in its decision.

“That’s right,” Prelogar said. “We are not making a substantive due process parent rights claim here and this court obviously didn’t grant review of that issue.”

--Bart Jansen

Kavanaugh pushes DOJ on whether case could impact other transgender disputes

Justice Brett Kavanaugh pushed the Justice Department on whether the court’s decision in this case would affect other legal disputes about transgender issues, including what sports teams transgender individuals can join and what bathrooms they can use

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said there are different governmental interests at stake in those cases that would have to be analyzed by the court.

She said the Justice Department would not have a problem with the court explicitly saying those are different issues if the justices agree that Tennessee’s law requires extra scrutiny.

-- Maureen Groppe

Bathroom debate on Congress: Sarah McBride says transgender bathroom bans at Capitol are 'attempt to misdirect' from big issues

Kavanaugh looks to ‘pump the brakes’ on changing rules in transsexual treatment

Justice Brett Kavanaugh cited “big changes in Europe” in the debate over risks and benefits of the treatment of transgender residents in suggesting the court should go slower.

“It’s obviously evolving debate,” Kavanaugh said. “If it’s evolving like that and changing, and England is pulling back and Sweden is pulling back, it strikes me as a pretty heavy yellow light if not red light for this court to come in – the nine of us – and constitutionalize the whole area with the rest of the world or at least the countries who have been at the forefront of this are pumping the brakes on this kind of treatment because of concerns about the risk.”

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said the government wasn’t asking for a “bright line constitutional rules to take further debate and evaluation of regulatory options away from states.”

She asked the justices to clarify whether Tennessee’s law bans treatment based on sex.

-- Bart Jansen

US solicitor general addresses concerns over risks

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar tried to address concerns about the risks of the care, including infertility and regrets someone may have after undergoing treatment.

Prelogar said infertility is not an issue for puberty blockers, just for hormone therapy. While there are infertility risks, she said, those can be addressed through more informed consent.

She acknowledged that some people regret the care, just as with any medical procedure, but said the number is “very low.”

--Maureen Groppe

Lawmakers address crowd outside court with arguments underway

Democratic Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts addressed a trans rights rally gathered outside the court on Wednesday morning, telling demonstrators that trans kids “deserve the freedom to get medically necessary gender affirming care.”

“Americans should have the freedom to make medical decisions in the privacy of their doctor's office without politicians trying to dictate to them,” he said.

Moments earlier, Republican Tennessee state Sen. Ed Jackson told demonstrators on the other side of the street that children should be allowed to “go through their normal hormonal changes” without the medications.“I do pray that today our Supreme Court rules in favor of children's health and safety,” he said.

Police gathered behind the crowds amid chants and waving signs.

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

Kagan weighs in as tailored West Virginia law cited as an example

Justice Elena Kagan asked whether, if the court agrees with the challengers that bans like Tennessee’s require extra scrutiny, the law must be invalidated.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said that would be true of a sweeping ban like Tennessee’s but it doesn’t make regulation impossible.

As an example, she pointed to West Virginia.

Prelogar said the state was looking at a total ban but ended up going with a more tailored approach that imposes guardrails, such as requiring evaluations by two doctors.

“I think a law like that is going to fare much better,” she said.

--Maureen Groppe

Sotomayor: 'There are some children who actually need this treatment'

Justice Sonia Sotomayor was the first justice to emphasize the problems adolescents face when their sex assigned at birth doesn’t match their gender identity.

She said some “suffer incredibly,” including attempting suicide. She quoted from statements from one of the adolescents challenging the ban that he became almost mute because he was unable to speak in an authentic voice.

“The evidence is very clear that there are some children who actually need this treatment,” she said.

--Maureen Groppe

Alito accuses government argument as ‘play on words’

Justice Samuel Alito asked if a state could ban all puberty blockers for minors, to remove any suggestion of sex discrimination.

But U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said banning drugs that either boys or girls could take to enhance characters to grow facial hair or cause a deeper voice represented discrimination based on sex.

“It’s no different than saying you can’t dress inconsistent with your sex,” Prelogar said.

Alito questioned how blocking certain drugs for all minors could lead to a violation of equal protection of the law.

“I’m not sure that’s anything more than a play on words,” Alito said.

--Bart Jansen

Alito presses DOJ on UK study on gender-affirming care

Justice Samuel Alito pressed U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who is arguing against Tennessee's law, on whether the federal government is ignoring England’s review of gender-affirming care, which concluded that there’s no good evidence on the long-term outcomes of the care for managing gender-related distress.

Prelogar acknowledged that there’s a lot of debate about the care and when adolescents should get it.

But she said she stands by the fact that a consensus remains that treatments are medically necessary for some adolescents.

“And that’s true no matter what source you look at,” she said.

--Maureen Groppe

Chief justice questions why issue shouldn't be left to the states

Chief Justice John Roberts questioned why this issue shouldn’t be best left to legislative bodies when dealing with an area of medical uncertainty.

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar responded that the medical uncertainty of the treatments can be taken into account while still subjecting laws like Tennessee’s to extra scrutiny because they discriminate based on a patient’s gender. Because of that, she said, Tennessee must show the bans advance an important state interest.

The appeals court did not apply that higher scrutiny standard when finding in favor of Tennessee and Prelogar is arguing that the Supreme Court require them to.

-- Maureen Groppe

Thomas questions whether case is about age rather than sex

Justice Clarence Thomas said government arguments in the case suggested the state had an outright ban on the treatment, but that “it’s really for minors.”

“Why isn’t this simply a case of age classification when it comes to these treatments, as opposed to a ban, as you suggested in your opening statement?” Thomas asked U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar.

Prelogar said the statute based the ban on age, but packaged the restrictions based on classification with a restriction based on sex. She said the case deserved a heightened level review that could overturn the state ban because of the sex restriction.

“The reason I’m calling it a categorical ban is because the state has left no out for those patients to obtain these medications when there is a showing of individualized medical need,” Prelogar said. “That is, I think, a stark departure from how the state ordinarily handles issues related to measuring risks and benefits even in the pediatric context.”

-- Bart Jansen

US solicitor general: Tennessee law discriminatory

U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar began her arguments by telling the court Tennessee’s law discriminates against transgender adolescents because it bans them from getting treatments that are available for other purposes.

And the state is doing so, Prelogar said, for the stated goal of encouraging minors to appreciate their sex assigned at birth.

“Someone assigned female at birth can’t receive medication to live as a male, but someone assigned male can,” she said. “If you change the individual sex, it changes the results.”

Rather than impose measured guardrails, she said, Tennessee bans the care outright.

“It doesn’t matter what parents decide is best for their children,” she said.

--Maureen Groppe

Starting puberty blockers was ‘the best day’ of 12-year-old’s life

Watching bans on puberty blockers sprout up across the country is “extremely nerve wracking” for Emily Kontos, whose 12-year-old trans son started taking the medications last summer.

“That’s why we’re here,” said Kontos, 46. “We're very nervous.”

Kontos’ son started to transition socially when he was around five. The day he started taking puberty blockers was “the best day of his life,” she said.

“Everyday that my son has been affirmed, he’s become happier and more himself,” she said.In two years, her son is set to start taking testosterone. Even though Kontos’ family lives in Massachusetts, where gender transition care is legal for minors, she fears the case could have a profound impact on the life of her son, who was“very depressed” before he began taking the medication.

“This is access to life saving medical care,”she said. “Without it… I don't know what would happen.”

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

Who is arguing against Tennessee's ban? Elizabeth Prelogar and Chase Strangio

Highlighting the significance of the case, the Justice Department chose its top Supreme Court litigator – Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar – to lead the challenge.

Chase Strangio, co-director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, will also try to convince the justices to strike down Tennessee’s ban.

Strangio will be the first openly transgender lawyer to argue before the court.

“I will not just be presenting legal arguments to the justices,” Strangio wrote in an opinion piece for the New York Times. “I will also be embodying them.”

– Maureen Groppe

Related: Transgender lawyer makes history, takes case on puberty blockers and hormone therapy to Supreme Court

Who is arguing for Tennessee's ban? Matthew Rice

Tennessee’s solicitor general, Matthew Rice, is representing the state.

Rice, who previously clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, is making his first appearance arguing before the court.

Before becoming a lawyer, Rice played minor league baseball for the Tampa Bay Rays.

– Maureen Groppe

‘I’m powerless’: Parents demonstrate against puberty blockers

Victoria Hall, 51, was a lifelong Democratic voter until she changed her party affiliation to independent over the issue of children’s access to gender transitions.

“I actually think that I may never vote again, because the betrayal is that deep,” Hall said of the Democratic Party’s support of transgender rights.

“This ideology has destroyed my family. It has ruined one of my children's health,” and is “destroying the fabric of society,” she said.

Hall’s child, who she said has autism, ADHD, and other mental health diagnoses, began secretly ordering the medications at age 17 and shipping them to a friend’s house, Hall said.

“It’s affecting his health,” Hall said of her child, now an adult who she said identifies as a woman.

When Hall took her 13-year-old daughter for a doctor’s visit, the doctor asked her to step outside to ask her daughter about her gender identity. Hall said she refused.

“What can I do? I’m powerless,” she said. “The state is interfering in my ability to even be a parent, through the school, through the doctor's office.”

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

‘Bodily autonomy’ at stake, plaintiffs’ lawyer says

Ethan Rice, an attorney with Lambda Legal, a legal organization representing the plaintiffs, said the case came down to “bodily autonomy.”“It's about the right to live the way that you choose to live,“ he said.Rice said “30 years of research” shows gender affirming treatments don’t do harm to kids.“What's at stake is literally potentially life saving health care,” he said.Rice hopes the court’s justices “follow the precedent” that the ban represents sex discrimination.“They need to determine how what standard applies for sex discrimination cases,” he said. “That’s not specific to transgender people.”

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

'Queer trans joy is unstoppable'

A crowd of demonstrators gathered outside the court hours before arguments are set to begin on Wednesday morning.

Dozens of trans rights protesters congregated on the northern side of the block carrying rainbow flags and holding signs reading “queer trans joy is unstoppable.”

On the other side, protesters held signs reading “no child can consent to be sterilized” and “puberty blockers = anti-gay.”

“Young people have been sold a counterfeit story,” a speaker in favor of the ban told the crowd. From the other side, speakers blasted music.

-- Cybele Mayes-Osterman

Could the decision echo the court's abortion ruling?

When the Supreme Court, in 2022, overruled the constitutional right to an abortion, the majority said the issue was better left in the hands of legislative bodies. The court said it had “neither the authority nor the expertise” to decide the relative importance of the fetus versus the mother.

Similar reasoning was used by Judge Jeffrey Sutton in the 6^th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling in favor of Tennessee’s law.

Because the treatments are “still experimental,” Sutton wrote, courts should be cautious about imposing a “constitutional straightjacket on legislative choices.”

Sutton also cited Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the 2022 abortion case, in explaining why Tennessee’s ban is not sex discrimination.

In Dobbs, the court said laws limiting abortion don’t run afoul of the equal protection clause. Tennessee’s law doesn’t either, Sutton wrote, just because it references a person’s sex – as do abortion laws.

– Maureen Groppe

How has the Supreme Court ruled before on transgender discrimination?

A divided Supreme Court, in 2020, did bar workplace discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgender employees – a surprise victory for the LGBTQ community.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that decision, which was backed by Chief Justice John Roberts and the court’s liberal justices.

But that case turned on the language of a federal civil rights law and not the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

In this case, both sides have laid out arguments for why that 2020 decision is or is not relevant.

– Maureen Groppe

Protections for transgender Americans in 2024

The Justice Department argues transgender Americans have historically been discriminated against.

“And such hostility is rising rather than abating,” the department told the court in a written argument, pointing to a “staggering number of laws” targeting transgender individuals passed by states.

President-elect Donald Trump, who made opposition to transgender rights a central theme of his campaign, has said he wants to “stop the chemical, physical and emotional mutilation of our youth.”

Tennessee, on the other hand, said it “blinks reality” to argue transgender people lack political power.  As evidence, the state’s lawyers list a variety of steps the Biden administration took to support transgender people.

“That they have not found success on every issue in every State does not prove powerlessness,” Tennessee’s lawyers told the Supreme Court.

– Maureen Groppe

More: Meet the Tennessee family behind the US Supreme Court's major transgender health care case

What's the legal issue in this case?

The main issue the court is deciding is whether the bans discriminate either because of a person’s sex or transgender status.

If they do, the bans might still be allowed. But Tennessee would have a greater burden to show its law advances an important government interest.

Opponents say the laws discriminate. That's because a teenager whose sex assigned at birth is male may be given testosterone to treat delayed puberty, but a teenager assigned female at birth who wants testosterone to treat gender dysphoria may not have it.

Tennessee says it's restricting treatments based on what they are being used for and the patient’s age – not because of the patient’s sex or transgender status – so they do not discriminate.

– Maureen Groppe

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Supreme Court transgender case: Updates from oral arguments