Supreme Court Enters Ultimate Culture War

By Mary Alice Miller
The tumultuous 2025 Supreme Court term saw the court vacillate towards eliminating Congress and itself in deference to a unitary executive. But on the trans ideology issue, the conservative majority was firm on its stance regarding trans ideology.

The Supreme Court allowed a ban on transgender individuals serving in the military while legal challenges continue. The ban came from a Trump executive order banning individuals with current or past diagnosis of gender dysphoria and those who have undergone hormone replacement therapy or transition-related surgery from enlisting or serving in the military.
The policy cites military readiness, medical costs, and disruptions to unit cohesion as reasons for its implementation.

The ban leaves transgender service members with two options: voluntarily leave rather than face involuntary separation, or serve in their biological sex.
And in the Skrmetti case, SCOTUS sided with a Tennessee state law banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for the treatment of gender dysphoria in minors, citing the law did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The Court decided that the classification of patients was based on age and medical diagnosis, not sex or transgender status.

Gender-affirming care for minors is now banned in Tennessee, though legal challenges based on other grounds, like parental rights or state constitutions, may still occur.
As of June 2025, twenty-seven states had enacted bans on gender-affirming care for minors. The ruling allows bans in 25 states to remain in place.

Bans in Arkansas and Montana are currently blocked by court order. Montana’s challenge related to the state’s constitution, not federal law. Bans in New Hampshire and Arizona ban only surgical care, which was not at issue before the Supreme Court, and remain in effect.

Days after the term ended, the Supreme Court announced it will consider whether states can ban male-bodied transgender athletes from participating in girls and women’s sports during the upcoming term. At issue is whether state laws in Idaho and West Virginia violate the 14th Amendments Equal Protection Clause or Title IX, a federal statute that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs. Lower courts sided with the transgender athletes.

The Idaho law considers that state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which draws “an across-the-board distinction based on sex,” barring trans-identified males from competing in girls and women’s sports leagues. The law was challenged by a transgender student.

The West Virginia case concerns that state’s Save Women’s Sports Act, which bars athletes who were born male from participating on girls’ sports teams in competitive and/or contact sports. That law was also challenged by a transgender student.

Meanwhile, the University of Pennsylvania recently reached an agreement with the Trump administration to block transgender athletes from female sports teams and erase the records set by swimmer Lia Thomas. The federal government released $175 million in frozen federal funds from UPenn that were withheld due to transgender participation in women’s sports at the university.

Lia Thomas participated in the UPenn male swim team and achieved a mediocre record. Thomas transitioned and then joined the UPenn women’s swim team. Thomas then won the 2022 NCAA championship in the women’s 100-meter, 200-meter, and 500-meter freestyle.
Thomas intended to participate in competitive swimming in the 2024 Olympics, but was barred from international events under World Aquatics rules that only allowed transgender athletes who had not experienced biological puberty to qualify.

The U.S. Dept. The Office for Civil Rights of the Department of Education investigated and found UPenn violated Title IX by “permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.”

Under the agreement, UPenn will adopt biology-based definitions for the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ and apologize to female student-athletes who lost to Thomas during the 2021-2022 swim season. UPenn also agreed to restore all individual Division I records and titles to female athletes who lost to Thomas.

This week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) hosted a workshop titled “The Dangers of ‘Gender-Affirming Care’ for Minors.” The FTC has broad authority to protect consumers from unfair or deceptive acts or practices. The workshop was conducted to help the FTC “understand whether consumers are being or have been exposed to false or unsupported claims about ‘gender-affirming care’ and to gauge the harms consumers may be experiencing.”

During the workshop psychiatrist Dr. Miriam Grossman, author of “Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness”, presented examples of what she called “fraudulent” practices regarding medical records designed to bill insurance companies for gender-affirming treatments.

During a panel on The Politicization of Science, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH) was highlighted as an example of establishing Standards of Care based on an agenda as opposed to medical standards.
Presenters included doctors, medical ethicists, whistleblowers, de-transitioners, and parents of de-transitioners.