US Supreme Court to hear challenge to ban on transgender care for minors

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Monday to decide the legality of a Republican-backed ban in Tennessee on gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, as the justices waded into another contentious issue implicating LGBT rights.

They took up an appeal by Democratic President Joe Biden's administration of a lower court's decision upholding Tennessee's ban on medical treatments including hormones and surgeries for minors experiencing gender dysphoria. The court will hear the case in its next term, which begins in October.

The challengers contend that banning care for transgender youth violates the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment's equal protection and due process guarantees by discriminating against these adolescents based on sex and transgender status.

Republican-led states have passed numeroussimilar measures in recent years targeting medications or surgical interventions for adolescents with gender dysphoria - the clinical diagnosis for significant distress that can result from an incongruence between a person's gender identity and the sex they were assigned at birth.