In the pending case of United States v. Skrmetti (argued on December 4), the Biden administration argued that a Tennessee law (SB1) that bars health-care providers from administering puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones to children as treatment for gender dysphoria violates the Equal Protection Clause.
As I anticipated, the new Department of Justice, in a short letter to the Supreme Court clerk, has repudiated the Biden administration’s unsound position in Skrmetti:
The Department has now determined that SB1 does not deny equal protection on account of sex or any other characteristic. Accordingly, the new Administration would not have intervened to challenge SB1—let alone sought this Court’s review of the court of appeals’ decision reversing the preliminary injunction against SB1.
As I also anticipated, DOJ in its letter advises the Supreme Court that it can and should go ahead and decide the case: The issue is an important one to resolve, and other parties “remain adverse to the state respondents in a dispute that has not become moot.” On the adverseness point, the letter cites the 1983 ruling that I cited.