SUPREME COURT LEANS INTO US CULTURE WARS

Justices wade into transgender rights debate in three high-profile cases.

- By Andrew Chung

Transgender minors. Transgender soldiers. Transgender characters in books. The US Supreme Court's latest term was bursting with fodder for America’s culture wars, few more so than three cases touching on transgender rights.

The court, powered by its 6-3 conservative majority, in each case ruled against transgender plaintiffs or their interests more broadly.

The court on June 18 upheld Tennessee’s ban on medical treatments for minors with gender dysphoria.

The court on May 6 granted Republican President Donald Trump's emergency request to let his ban on transgender people in the military take effect. And on June 27 it permitted parents to keep their children out of classes when storybooks with LGBT characters are read.

The three liberal justices dissented in all three cases. "If you were gay or transgender," said John Malcolm, a legal scholar at the conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation think tank, the rulings represented "clear losses."

These outcomes — along with other decisions that split along ideological lines to back restrictions on abortion provider Planned Parenthood and limits on access to online pornography — showed the majority's willingness to rule on polarising matters as the court continues to steadily push US law to the right.

These cases, according to Mr Malcolm, also showed that, at least in litigation involving governmental policies towards transgender people and minors more generally, the court will “cut a lot more slack” to judgments made by legislators.