Supreme Court Hears Arguments in Gender Transition Procedures Case

The Supreme Court weighed oral arguments in a challenge to Tennessee's 2023 ban on gender transition procedures for minors. A decision is expected by the summer.

The Arguments: The Biden administration's solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, argued that Tennessee's law treats people differently based on their sex and therefore violates the Equal Protection Clause. Tennessee's solicitor general, J. Matthew Rice, responded that the law falls within the state's prerogative to regulate youth medicine.

The Justices' Responses: The court's three liberal justices voiced agreement with Prelogar. Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted that, under the law, a doctor may prescribe testosterone to a biologically male child to become more masculine, but not a biologically female child for the same reason. Some conservative justices characterized the law as addressing a rapidly changing area of medical understanding, which they suggested would be better handled by legislatures rather than the judicial system.

How the Right Covered It: Blaze Media (Right bias) highlighted Justice Ketanji Brown-Jackson's reference to a precedent set in Loving v. Virginia, saying it amounted to an argument that "bans on transgender surgeries for children are similar to bans on interracial marriage." National Review (Lean Right) pointed to research that challenges Prelogar's claim that transition procedures unambiguously improve mental health for children with gender dysphoria.

How the Left Covered It: An analysis in Vox (Left) said the conservative justices were essentially arguing for a "carveout" to the Equal Protection Clause; it also pointed out the Tennessee law explicitly mentions biological sex. An opinion in Yahoo News (Lean Left) focused on a "mind-boggling" question asked by Justice Amy Coney Barrett about whether transgender people have historically faced discrimination, alleging she has a "history of judicial hostility toward LGBTQ issues."