The Supreme Court is facing intense pressure to step into the charged debate over gender-affirming care as transgender minors and their families fight with GOP states over a wave of laws passed in recent years that restrict such care for young trans people.
The high court has largely stayed out of hot-button cases concerning transgender rights, often declining to intervene when litigants appeal to the justices in disputes over everything from school bathroom policies and sports bans to prohibitions on conversion therapy.
But a patchwork of lower-court decisions in cases over gender-affirming care may ultimately force the court to wade into the issue for the first time. As things currently stand, the justices are facing four appeals in cases challenging bans on gender-affirming care for minors in three states.
The most recent appeal landed at the court last month in the form of an emergency request from officials in Idaho who want the court to permit the state to enforce its ban while a legal challenge to it plays out in a lower court. Both sides have fully briefed their arguments before the court, which could act on the emergency appeal as soon as this week.
The other three appeals arrived at the court days apart last November and stem from an appeals court decision last year upholding state bans in Tennessee and Kentucky in challenges to the laws from trans youth and their families, as well as the Biden administration.
The justices are set to consider those earlier appeals for the first time during their closed-door conference next week. The trio of petitions could languish for weeks or months if the justices decide to slow-walk their consideration of them.
“These laws are punitive, and insofar as the court cares about impacts on people on the ground, these cases make out…
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