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The Supreme Court is set to hear arguments on Wednesday in just its second major transgender rights case, a challenge to a Tennessee law that bans gender-affirming care for minors.
The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. ET. Listen in the player above.
The nation’s top court will be weighing whether Tennessee’s law violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, requiring that people in similar circumstances be treated the same under the law. Both sides in the case claim they are acting to protect minors from harm.
At least 26 states have adopted laws banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Federal judges in Arkansas and Florida have struck down the bans in those states as unconstitutional, though an appeals court has put the Florida ruling on hold. The ban in New Hampshire is to take effect on Jan. 1.
Several Democratic-controlled states have policies seeking to protect access to gender-affirming care.
Additionally, at least 24 states have bans barring transgender women and girls from competing in certain women’s and girls’ sports competitions. And at least 11 have laws barring transgender women and girls from using girls’ and women’s bathrooms at public schools — and in some cases, in other government facilities.
Most laws are reviewed and upheld under the lowest level of scrutiny, known as rational basis review. Indeed, the federal appeals court in Cincinnati that allowed the Tennessee law to be enforced held that lawmakers acted rationally in adopting the law to address the risks they perceived in gender-affirming care for minors.
But when discrimination is present, judges take a closer look.
Sex discrimination gets heightened scrutiny, which requires states to identify an important objective and show that the law helps accomplish it. Racial discrimination, not at issue here, is reviewed under strict scrutiny — the highest level — and laws rarely survive such a demanding examination.
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