Supreme Court case compared to 'Dobbs-style earthquake' for trans people

The Supreme Court on Wednesday will hear oral arguments in a case involving doctors' rights to give puberty blockers and sex hormone medications to transgender minors.

Since the matter concerns pre-pubescent children, it has sparked enormous controversy and is likely to be one of the most important Supreme Court decisions of 2025, especially as the issue of transgender rights has become a major factor in the presidential election.

The case is United States v. Jonathan Scrimetti. Scrimetti is Tennessee's attorney general, and became a party in the case after parents and transgender rights groups launched a legal challenge to a Tennessee law banning transgender drug use for minors.

Conservative columnist Matt Walsh is among those who say the case could cause the same shock as the Dobbs case in 2022, which struck down the federal right to abortion.

“Next Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in United States v. Scrimetti. This is the culmination of our fight against the barbarity of child sex change, and it could be a Dobbs-style earthquake for child protection.” He wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee, one of the groups representing the plaintiffs, says: “When arguing against transgender people and their families, states with bans like Tennessee have relied heavily on the Supreme Court's Dobbs v. Women's Health of Jackson opinion, which overturned Roe v. Women's Health Organization. Wade and states allowed to ban abortion “United States v. Scrimetti will be a key test of the Court's willingness to extend DOBS to allow states to ban other health care.”

Plaintiffs say the ban violates the Equal Protection Clause by discriminating on the basis of sex and transgender status, and violates parents' rights to due process by limiting their ability to direct their children's medical care.

Tennessee's ban does not disaggregate based on sex or transgender status and should be evaluated under less-intensive rational basis review, requiring the law to be rationally related to a legitimate government interest, much like Mississippi's law in Dobbs, Scrimetti wrote in the defendant's brief. He was.

To back this up, he says that similar bans imposed in Tennessee have been overturned or reconsidered in other countries, and that medications used in gender-affirming care are still .

One legal expert told Newsweek that he does not expect the Supreme Court to overturn the ban on equal protection grounds, and may even use the case to narrow its definition of the term, which could have far-reaching implications.

Here are some issues related to the case:

What is the USA vs. Skremiti match?

In 2023, Tennessee passed Senate Bill 1 (SB1), which prohibits health care providers from performing any medical procedure that “enables a minor to identify or live with an alleged identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or any medical procedure “to treat alleged discomfort.” “. Or distress due to the disagreement between the minor’s gender and his confirmed identity.”

Newsweek illustration. The Supreme Court case on gender-affirming care could have far-reaching implications. Newsweek illustration. The Supreme Court case on gender-affirming care could have far-reaching implications. Image illustration by Newsweek/Getty

The law says that includes “telehealth,” which involves video calls and sending hormone blockers or other medications to a person in another state.

The bill adds that it is not a legal defense for doctors to claim “that the minor, or a parent of the minor, consented to the conduct that constitutes abuse.” It allows exceptions if doctors are treating “a birth defect, precocious puberty, or physical injury.”

The Biden administration quickly joined parents and others seeking to overturn the Tennessee law.

In its legal brief, the US Department of Justice pointed to some comments made by Tennessee politicians during discussions on the bills.

Among them was Rep. William Lamberth, who sponsored the bill and told the Tennessee lawmaker that there was an “increasing social contagion of gender dysphoria” driven in part by “social media’s glorification of the transition process.”

At the same hearing, the Justice Department noted that Representative Paul Sherrill said: “If you don’t know who you are – boy or girl, male or female – just go to the bathroom, take off your clothes and look in the mirror.” And you will find out.”

The Federal District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee agreed to impose an injunction based on Tennessee law, based on the fundamental rights of parents to decide what is best for their children.

The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed and said such a right had no roots in the history of American jurisprudence.

What does it mean for gender-affirming care?

If Tennessee wins the case, the law would continue to prohibit “certain forms of medically necessary care for transgender minors diagnosed with gender dysphoria,” the Justice Department tribunal said.

One of these minors is a teenager identified in the courts as LW. She is the daughter of the Williams family and, through her parents, is one of the lead plaintiffs in the Supreme Court case.

At an ACLU press conference on Tuesday, her father, Brian Williams, said LW began taking hormone blockers at age 13 and female hormones about a year later.

The LW, now 16, was forced to travel out of state to get treatment, and that's a “shrinking option as more states ban the procedure,” he said.

He said his family was fortunate to be able to travel to other states and that their “hearts break” for the families of other transgender minors who could not afford to travel outside of Tennessee.

Polls show that Americans generally support preventing discrimination against transgender people, although they are divided on specific policies.

A June 2024 Gallup poll found that 61 percent of respondents opposed banning “psychological support, hormonal treatments, and medical surgeries” for transgender minors, although 53 percent of Republicans supported such a ban.

A February 2024 YouGov poll found that 52 percent of respondents specifically opposed hormone therapy for young people and 28 percent were in favor of it.

How can the Supreme Court rule this case?

The major development in this case was the re-election of Donald Trump.

According to ad tracking firm AdImpact, Republicans spent $215 million on ads with anti-trans messages this election cycle. “Kamala is theirs/theirs. President Trump is yours,” reads one prominent ad.

Trump will likely direct the Justice Department to switch sides in the Supreme Court case, according to Chase Strangio, an ACLU attorney who is set to become the first transgender lawyer to address the Supreme Court.

However, he said the case has already been filed and there is little the Trump administration can do to change its fundamentals.

“Nothing changes regarding the basic contention of the case, regardless of what happens with the next administration,” he said.

Peter Shin, a law professor at New York University, said the Supreme Court was unlikely to place Tennessee's law under “heightened scrutiny” — the extremely high threshold a law must reach if it threatens basic rights.

“Courts reserve so-called heightened scrutiny — that is, more intense judicial review — for legal classifications that either burden the exercise of a fundamental right, such as voting, or that work to the disadvantage of a 'suspect class,' such as race or gender,” he told Newsweek.

Sheen said the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice John Roberts, was reluctant to add new fundamental rights or new suspect classes, categories of individuals who have historically been discriminated against and therefore afforded special protection.

“The Supreme Court’s constitutional rulings, which expanded the rights of gays and lesbians, were in fact based on what the court calls “minimum scrutiny,” which questions whether a law is rationally related to legitimate government interests.

“All of the Supreme Court victories for LGBT plaintiffs, from Lawrence v. Texas, which decriminalized same-sex sexual intercourse between adults, to Obergefell v. Hodges, the same-sex marriage case, were based on the assumption that the laws challenged in These issues lack a legitimate government interest.

Greg German, a law professor at Syracuse University, told Newsweek that the Supreme Court is unlikely to strike down the Tennessee law on equal protection grounds, as the plaintiffs are seeking.

The Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment states that the government “shall not deny to any person subject to its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

“It is true that the law treats underage transgender people differently from non-transgender people, but the law does not discriminate on the basis of sex: treatments for male and female transgender people are prohibited for minors,” German said.

Germain believes the Supreme Court, instead of providing equal protection, will use the case to narrow its definition.

“The trial courts are all over the map on equal protection issues, and the government argues that transgenderism is a protected class,” he said. “I suspect the court took this case to limit equal protection challenges to inherently traditional characteristics like race and gender.” .

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