President Trump’s Justice Department has alerted the Supreme Court that it would, as expected, switch sides and back Tennessee in the high-stakes challenge, brought by the Biden Administration, to the Volunteer State’s ban on gender-transition treatments for minors. Nevertheless, the Justice Department has also decided not to withdraw President Biden’s original complaint, filed last year. 

The Trump Administration may have decided to tolerate this contradiction because it expects, as do many legal observers, that the court will uphold the Tennessee law; a ruling is expected in June. This would be a major victory for Republicans’ years-long effort to prevent minors from accessing gender-transition drugs.

The landmark case, the stakes of which have only ratcheted up since the Trump administration sought to restrict young people’s access to these medical interventions nationwide through an executive order, will consequently proceed as originally planned. 

This move—or lack thereof—on the Justice Department’s part resolves an open question that, since President Donald Trump’s victory in November, hung over this case. The justices heard oral arguments on December 4. Questions asked by the justices during the hearing strongly suggested that the court, with its 6-3 conservative majority, will uphold the Tennessee law.