On its face, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to hear a challenge by the Biden administration to Tennessee’s ban on transition care for transgender minors looks like the kind of case that the high court is meant to resolve.

Different lower federal courts have reached differing conclusions about similar laws—sometimes allowing the bans and sometimes overturning them—and resolving a split among the circuit court of appeals is one reason why certiorari is granted. Indeed, to some legal experts it was all but pre-ordained: “The Supreme Court was always going to have resolve how state bans on gender-affirming medical care can be reconciled with its approach to sex-based discrimination,” Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law and CNN analyst, told the network Monday.

But appearances can be deceiving.

Until now the justices have steered clear of wading into the quagmire of transgender issues, refusing to take on how different states handle questions of what bathrooms can be used by transgender students and who can play sports on which teams. While they did allow an Idaho ban against transgender treatment to stand, that case was decided not on the merits but only about whether a federal trial court could enjoin the law from taking effect as the case continued to be litigated at the lower court level.

The Idaho case—on the court’s emergency docket—spewed forth an array of dissents and concurrences mostly focusing on to........

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