The Supreme Court on Monday announced it will hear a case related to gender transition care for minors in its next term, putting the high court at the center of yet another hot-button social issue.

What You Need To Know

  • The Supreme Court agreed to take up a case next term involving gender transition care for minors

  • The justices agreed to resolve challenges to a Tennessee law that restricts puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors

  • It's the first time the highest court in the land will weigh in on the issue of health care for transgender youth

  • The Biden administration urged the high court to take up the case

The justices agreed to resolve challenges to a Tennessee law that restricts puberty blockers and hormone therapy for minors, marking the first time the highest court in the land will weigh in on the issue of health care for transgender youth. A lower court had blocked the law from going into effect, but a federal appeals court based in Cincinnati allowed the Tennessee restriction, as well as a similar Kentucky law, to go into effect. (While plaintiffs petitioned the court about both states' laws, the high court did not act on the Kentucky appeal.)

"Without this Court’s prompt intervention, transgender youth and their families will remain in limbo, uncertain of whether and where they can access needed medical care," attorneys for the Tennessee plaintiffs wrote to the court.

The Biden administration urged the high court to take up the case, arguing that the law "categorically forbids" treatments for gender dysphoria "in explicitly sex-based terms," leaving "the same treatments entirely unrestricted if they are prescribed for any other purpose."

"Thus, for example, a teenager whose sex assigned at birth is male can be prescribed testosterone to conform to a male gender identity, but a teenager assigned female at birth cannot," Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar wrote in a brief to the court.

The case comes as lawmakers in largely Republican-led states have enacted a wave of restrictions to transgender rights, including not only bans on transition health care, but also participation in school sports, bathroom usage and drag shows.

According to the Human Rights Campaign, 25 states have enacted restrictions on gender transition care for minors, with 39% of transgender youth living in those states. All but two of those states are led by Republicans. (Arizona's restriction was signed into law in 2022, nearly a year before Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs was sworn in; and while North Carolina has a Democratic governor, Republicans boast a supermajority in the state's legislature, allowing them to override Gov. Roy Cooper's veto of the ban on transition care last year.)

Last month, South Carolina became the 25th state to adopt a law restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, even though such treatments have been available in the United States for more than a decade and are endorsed by major medical associations.

Many of those restrictions have been challenged in court. Earlier this year, the high court allowed Idaho to enforce its ban on gender transition care for minors, which makes it a felony for doctors to provide such treatments to youth. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report.