WASHINGTON — Advocates for transgender rights are turning to a conservative-dominated Supreme Court after a presidential election in which Donald Trump and his allies promised to roll back protections for transgender people.
The justices on Wednesday are taking up the issue of gender-affirming care for transgender minors, which has been banned by Tennessee and 25 other Republican-led states.
The fight over whether transgender adolescents can access puberty blockers and hormonal treatments is part of a broader effort to regulate the lives of transgender people, including which sports competitions they can join and which bathrooms they can use.
Trump backed a national ban on such care as part of his 2024 campaign in which he demeaned and mocked transgender people.
In its waning days, the Biden administration, along with families of transgender adolescents, will appeal to the justices to strike down the Tennessee ban as unlawful sex discrimination and protect the constitutional rights of vulnerable Americans.
''The stakes are high, of course, for transgender adolescents, but also for the parents who are watching their children suffer, who are just trying to do right by their kids,'' Chase Strangio, who represents the families at the Supreme Court, said in an interview. Strangio, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, will be the first openly transgender person to argue before the high court.
A lawyer for Tennessee will argue that the ''life-altering gender-transition procedures'' are risky and unproven and that it's the state's role to protect children.
Trump nominated three justices in his first term who pushed the court in a more conservative direction that included the decision in 2022 overturning the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling, which had protected abortion rights for nearly 50 years.