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If the Trump Administration changes its position, the outcome of the case before the Supreme Court may be impacted because the federal government initiated the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
Writing from the nation
The case concerning transgender rights that the justices are reviewing on Wednesday is known as United States v. Skrmetti. This case involves a challenge initiated by the federal government.
However, the government’s control will shift next month, and it is highly likely that the Trump administration will reject the Biden administration’s claim that a Tennessee law prohibiting certain medical treatments for transgender minors goes against the Constitution.
Typically, this would indicate that the justices would have no more decisions to make, since both parties would agree that the law is constitutional.
In 2017, a similar situation occurred when President-elect Donald J. Trump took office. In March of that year, the Supreme Court decided to dismiss a case that involved the rights of transgender students. This decision came after the Trump administration changed its stance on the issue. The case in question was about a transgender boy in Virginia who wanted to use the boys’ bathroom at his high school.
However, there is a complication in this situation. Three families and a doctor were the ones who first challenged the Tennessee law, with the Biden administration stepping in to support them. Both the families and the government submitted separate requests for the Supreme Court to review the case, and the justices decided to only accept the petition from the government.
Instead of rejecting the case, the court has the option to approve the companion petition at a later time. The court may choose to listen to a different argument, or they can refer to the one presented on Wednesday by Chase Strangio from the ACLU and Elizabeth B. Prelogar, the U.S. solicitor general, who is representing the Biden administration.
In the past, new administrations typically did not change their positions often. For example, the Obama administration did not change its positions at all when it took office. However, the first Trump administration was more bold in this regard. It changed positions in four major cases during its first full Supreme Court term, including cases on workers’ rights and voting rolls, and it was successful in all four cases.
The Biden administration did not hesitate to change their stance on issues previously supported by the Trump administration. As reported by Thomas Wolf of the Brennan Center for Justice, they rejected the approaches taken by the previous administration five times, and were unsuccessful in four of those instances.
Adam Liptak is a journalist who reports on the activities of the Supreme Court and writes a column called Sidebar about legal news. He attended Yale Law School and worked as a lawyer for 14 years before starting at The New York Times in 2002. Learn more about Adam Liptak.
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