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If the Trump Administration changes its stance on the case, it could impact the outcome of the Supreme Court decision since the government originally brought the challenge.
Written by Adam Liptak
Writing from the capital
The legal case about transgender rights being heard by the judges on Wednesday is known as United States v. Skrmetti, indicating that it is a legal dispute initiated by the federal government.
The government will shift control next month, and it is likely that the Trump administration will reject the Biden administration’s claim that a Tennessee law limiting certain medical treatments for transgender minors goes against the Constitution.
Typically, this would indicate that there would be no further decisions for the judges to make, since both parties would agree that the law was constitutional.
In 2017, a similar situation occurred when President-elect Donald J. Trump assumed office. In March of that year, the Supreme Court decided to drop a case that involved the rights of transgender students after the Trump administration changed its stance. The case 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 initially challenged the Tennessee law, with the Biden administration joining them in support. 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 immediately throwing out 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 stick with 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 made few changes to previous positions. However, the Obama administration did not change any positions when it took office. On the other hand, the first Trump administration made significant changes in four major cases during its first full Supreme Court term, such as workers’ rights and voting rolls, and won all four cases.
The Biden administration did not hesitate to change their stance on issues. According to Thomas Wolf of the Brennan Center for Justice, they rejected the approaches of the Trump administration five times, but only won one of those cases.
Adam Liptak is a journalist who reports on 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.
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