The Trump administration changed the government position on Friday in a major case on the rights of transgender minors pending in the Supreme Court.
The development was expected and is consistent with an executive order issued last month directing agencies to take steps to curtail surgeries, hormone therapy and other gender transition care for youths under 19.
The case, United States v. Skrmetti, No. 23-477, was brought by the Biden administration to challenge a Tennessee law that bans some medical treatments for transgender minors. When the case was argued in December, Elizabeth B. Prelogar, then the solicitor general, told the justices that the law violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause.
In a letter to the court on Friday, Curtis E. Gannon, a deputy solicitor general, said the government had changed its stance.
“The government’s previously stated views no longer represent the United States’ position,” he wrote.
But he urged the justices to decide the case anyway. He acknowledged that this presented some complications, as the court sometimes dismisses cases when the two sides agree about the proper outcome.
