The US Supreme Court has tossed another briquette onto this year’s election barbeque. It has agreed to hear United States v. Skrmetti, in which the Biden Administration challenges a Tennessee law which has banned transgender treatment for minors.

Jonathan Skrmetti, the state Attorney-General, says that he is looking forward to defending the statute, one of dozens across the country which aim to protect teenagers from life-altering medical treatment. “This case will bring much-needed clarity to whether the Constitution contains special protections for gender identity," he says.

Americans are divided on whether being male or female is an innate characteristic. About 90 percent of Trump supporters believe that sex is real and only about 40 percent of Biden supporters. The Administration has been a consistent advocate of transgender rights, but it’s uncertain whether this is going to help the President in November. About two-thirds of black voters who support Biden believe that sex is innate, and their votes are important for his election chances.

The Tennessee law, Senate Bill 1 (SB1), was enacted last year. It prohibits all medical treatments which allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or which treat “purported discomfort or distress from a discordance between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.”

The Biden Administration argues that restricting puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones constitutes discrimination based on sex, which violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.

Tennessee contends that these treatments are unsafe and that teenagers are not mature enough to assess their long-term consequences. Whether or not drugs may be prescribed, Skrmetti argues in his brief, “does not turn on invidious sex discrimination but on the age of the individual and the risk-reward assessment of treating this medical condition

He cites a very sensible opinion in Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit which declared that “life-tenured judges construing a difficult-to-amend Constitution should be humble and careful about announcing new substantive due process or equal protection rights that limit accountable elected officials from sorting out these medical, social, and policy challenges.”

In short, as in Dobbs, Tennessee (and other states) are asserting the right to determine the safety and appropriateness of medical treatment themselves, not the federal government.

The challengers of the Tennessee law are a 15-year-old transgender girl, a 15-year-old transgender boy, and a 12-year-old transgender boy -- all supported by doctors and their parents.

The brief submitted by Biden’s Solicitor General, Elizabeth Prelogar, attempts to refute Skrmetti’s argument that transgender medicine for teens is unsafe and lacks a sound evidence base. She cites various studies – but significantly, not the guidelines of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH), which are – or used to be – regarded as authoritative. WPATH was a mainstay of the challengers’ argument.

There’s probably a good reason for the omission – the eighth edition of WPATH’s Standards of Care is in tatters. It has been attacked in the United States and abroad for its shoddy and partisan research.