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Trans rights lawsuits in lower courts pressure Supreme Court to weigh in

Differing lower court rulings on transgender issues will likely prompt consideration by the Supreme Court, which in recent years has declined to weigh in on transgender bathroom battles in schools and objections from religious hospitals over providing transgender surgeries.

Such issues, however, have continued to bubble up in lower courts.

Just this month, a federal judge ruled that transgender patients in West Virginia must receive the same type of procedures offered under Medicaid to other patients — pointing to vaginoplasty as an example of covered care.

Last month, another federal judge ruled against the Biden administration over its order that schools and employers who receive federal funding must allow transgender students and employees to use bathroom facilities of their preference and participate in sports that correspond with identity rather than biology.