"The real wild card is Amy Coney Barrett": The Supreme Court case that could eviscerate trans rights

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"The real wild card is Amy Coney Barrett": The Supreme Court case that could eviscerate trans rights
Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett is seen as a swing vote on the rights of transgender youth

By Tatyana Tandanpolie
Staff Reporter
Published June 16, 2025 12:44PM (EDT)
Updated June 16, 2025 2:23PM (EDT)


(Salon) With the arrival of June comes the first true glimmers of a patently American summer: vibrant Pride parades, weekend barbecues, festivals galore — and the looming release of the Supreme Court's most contentious rulings. Among this year's slate is a landmark case on gender-affirming care for minors that will have sprawling implications for transgender youth and adults, alongside the potential to upend decades of anti-discrimination law.

U.S. v. Skrmetti concerns Tennessee's 2023 gender-affirming care ban, which prohibits physicians from providing medical treatments like hormone therapy or puberty blockers to minors seeking to transition. During oral argument in December 2024, the Biden administration argued that a patient's birth-assigned sex determines what treatment the law prohibits or allows; for example, providing someone assigned female at birth with estrogen therapy is not prohibited under the law, while providing that treatment to a child assigned male at birth is.

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No matter how the justices decide, the case will be far-reaching, impacting access to health care for trans youth, trans Americans' protections against discrimination and, potentially, the foundation of equal protection doctrine. If December's oral argument was any indication of its thinking (legal experts say it isn't always), the highest court's ruling stands a good chance of unleashing greater harm onto a community of less than two million people already facing broad legislative attacks at the state level and targeted executive actions at the federal.

But Rutgers University law professor Katie Eyer, who specializes in anti-discrimination law, takes a slightly more optimistic view. The leading scholar in LGBTQ+ employment rights, social movements and constitutional change told Salon that, while four of the conservative justices seemed likely to vote against the plaintiffs, Justice Amy Coney Barrett's thoughtful questioning — and Justice Neil Gorsuch's opinion expanding Title VII anti-discrimination protections based on sexaulity and gender identity in Bostock v. Clayton County — indicate it's still possible the plaintiffs could prevail.

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I do want to know what the stakes of this case are for trans youth and even trans adults before we get into the broader applications.

The stakes are obviously enormous for transgender youth and transgender adults, and that's for a few different reasons. So first, and most obviously, whatever the court decides will profoundly impact access to gender-affirming care. The stakes of the case have gone up even since the court granted review. Because President [Donald] Trump has attempted to nationalize what was previously a state-by-state attack on gender-affirming care for trans youth. So he issued an executive order that directs the federal government as much as they can to go after this issue. It's important to note that the key issues here — there's no reason that they would be different for trans adults compared to a trans minor. So if the court says no closer look is required of this law, that you get just a very deferential type of review where the state doesn't have to prove its reasons, that same reasoning would apply to adult care as well. And another key factor about the executive order that we saw is them already pushing into legal adulthood, right? So they covered folks under age 19. It's quite clear that the end game is to try to reduce access to or eliminate access to this care for everybody. ............................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/06/16/the-real-wild-card-is-amy-coney-barrett-the-case-that-could-eviscerate-trans-rights/