These 4 trans-related Supreme Court cases affect everyone’s future civil rights

This coming year, the Supreme Court will consider four cases focused on transgender rights. Their outcome could affect all Americans because they essentially determine whether federal civil rights law protects everyone regardless of sex or gender.

While the cases challenge bans on gender-affirming care and drag performances as well as anti-discrimination protections in schools and workplaces, the court’s rulings could impact everyone’s civil rights and liberties, according to Gabriel Arkles, co-interim Legal Director for Advocates for Trans Equality. The high court’s ruling could also determine the constitutionality of laws restricting reproductive rights, book bans, harassment, and employer healthcare coverage.

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“The courts are facing crucial decisions about the unprecedented rash of anti-trans laws, and these rulings will determine whether constitutional guarantees like equal protection under the law will be upheld for trans and gender-nonconforming people, or if governments will be allowed to persecute us,” Arkles said on a press call discussing the cases, their legal arguments, and their potential impact on all Americans.

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“No matter what happens in the court, trans people are not going away,” Arkles said. “We are going to find ways to support each other. We are going to find ways to survive. We are going to find ways to thrive, and we are going to find ways to push for change.”

Here are details of all four cases and Arkles’ assessment of their larger significance for civil equality.

U.S. v. Skrmetti – Gender-affirming bans treat cis & trans kids unequally

While this case questions the constitutionality of bans on gender-affirming care for trans youth, its outcome could have an immense impact on other laws, such as ones banning trans athletes from playing sports or laws preventing trans people from receiving government documents that accurately reflect their gender identity, Arkles said. Currently, 26 states have laws restricting gender-affirming care, and six of those states make the provision of such care a felony.

This case concerns Samantha and Brian Williams of Nashville and their 15-year-old transgender daughter, as well as two other anonymous families affected by Tennessee’s 2023 gender-affirming care ban, S.B. 1. The law required all trans minors receiving gender-affirming care in the state to de-transition by last April and restricts all gender-affirming care for trans minors henceforth, imposing civil penalties on any doctors who provide such care.

The plaintiffs argue that the law bans best-practice medical care for trans youth, violating the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause, which promises equal application of laws among all citizens. The medical care prohibited by the Tennessee law has safely been provided to cisgender minors for decades without government interference.

“It was incredibly painful watching my child struggle before we were able to get her the life-saving healthcare she needed. We have a confident, happy daughter now, who is free to be herself and she is thriving,” said plaintiff Samantha Williams. “I am so afraid of what this law will mean for her. We don’t want to leave Tennessee, but this legislation would force us to either routinely leave our state to get our daughter the medical care she desperately needs or to uproot our entire lives and leave Tennessee altogether. No family should have to make this kind of choice.”

The plaintiffs in the case are represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Tennessee, Lambda Legal, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld LLP. The defendants are Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti and his staff.

The case will likely be argued in December or January, and a ruling will be issued in June or early July 2025. Surprisingly, nearly 200 Democrats and Republicans have written amicus briefs asking the Supreme Court to rule against the ban.

Woodlands Pride v. Paxton – Drag bans violate free speech

This case challenges Texas’s ban on drag performance, a law that holds performers and venues criminally liable for performing drag in the presence of a minor.

The law prohibits performances in which “a male performer [is] exhibiting as a female, or a female performer exhibiting as a male, who uses clothing, makeup, or other similar physical markers and who sings, lip syncs, dances, or otherwise performs before an audience.” It calls such performances “sexually oriented” and fines performers and venues $10,000 if they allow a minor to view them.

The plaintiffs include Houston Pride organizer The Woodlands Pride, Abilene Pride Alliance, Extragrams, LLC, 360 Queen Entertainment LLC, and drag artist Brigitte Bandit. They say the law seeks to erase LGBTQ+ visibility from public life and is so broadly written that it would threaten all types of theatrical and artistic performances, leaving legal enforcers to decide what is or is not “sexually oriented” or “sexually explicit.”

“These [free-speech claims are against Texas’ ban are] rock solid, and you don’t need to be sympathetic to trans people in particular to see it,” Arkles said.

“You can’t ban a type of performance because you don’t like the message it sends about gender without violating the free speech clause,” Arkles said. “An outcome [against the ban] … would be a ray of hope for all trans people, gender-nonconforming people, and drag performers who, right now, are afraid of singing, dancing, speaking, performing, or expressing themselves in any other way in public.”

Tennessee v. Cardona – Schools can’t discriminate against LGBTQ+ students

In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) issued an amendment to existing Title IX regulations prohibiting federally funded schools from instituting any discriminatory policies or harassment against students on the basis of gender identity, sexual orientation, or pregnancy.

While the regulations didn’t address sports, they did say that schools can’t deny trans students access to gendered facilities matching their gender identity (such as bathrooms and locker rooms), can’t deliberately misgender or dead-name students, and can’t censor books that reflect LGBTQ+ identities. Schools that violate the regulations risk federal lawsuits, DOE investigations, and possible loss of federal funding.

The regulations relied on the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, which said that laws forbidding sex-based discrimination include sexual orientation and gender identity. However, Republican attorneys general in 26 states successfully sued to stop the rules from being enforced.

“The safety and well-being of many 1,000s of trans students hang in the balance, and again, a narrow Title IX reading harms everyone,” Arkles said. “We’ve particularly seen women and girls of color who are not trans getting harassed as if they were trans. So really, what we need here for the courts to say these laws do protect everyone, and there’s no form of sex discrimination that is that is still legal.”

Lange v. Houston County, Georgia – Employer health plans can’t refuse gender-affirming care

Anna Lange — a transgender deputy who has worked at the Houston County, Georgia Sheriff’s Office since 2006 — was denied equal medical care when, in 2019, her employer refused to cover her gender-affirming care under its health insurance, even though the insurance company (Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield) said it would cover the procedure.

Lange sued, saying that the denial of coverage constituted “unlawful discrimination” under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, as well as other federal and state equal protection clauses. Her case later cited the Supreme Court’s 2020 Bostock v. Clayton County decision, which forbids discrimination based on gender identity.

The county spent $1.2 dollars in legal fees to avoid paying for the deputy’s $10,000 surgery… and so far, the county has repeatedly lost its case.

In 2022, a federal judge of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Georgia ruled in Lange’s favor, and, in May 2024, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled 2-1 in her favor as well. The latter victory marked the first that a federal appellate court affirmed that it is unlawful for an employer to discriminate against trans people in an employee health plan. 

“It’s absolutely not possible to deprive a worker of health benefits because the care they need is related to them being transgender, without discriminating against them for being transgender,” Arkles said. “We already know from the Supreme Court that that violates federal law.”

A ruling against Lange would be a “real setback” to healthcare access for trans people and would have implications for all women, all LGBTQ+ people, and anyone who relies on civil rights law to protect them from discrimination in the workplace, Arkles said. Such a ruling would say that differential treatment is allowed based on “a very narrow and strained reading of the law,” they added.

“Many business and government entities have voluntarily complied with these laws, and some would want to do the right thing and treat trans people at work … fairly, even if they weren’t legally required to do so,” Arkles added. “But there have been some that have been fighting as tooth and nail, trying to get courts to approve of the ways they want to discriminate against our communities.”

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