In FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, 602 U.S. 367 (2024), a group of anti-abortion medical organizations and doctors filed a lawsuit in the Northern District of Texas challenging the FDA’s 2000 approval of the drug mifepristone and its later regulatory changes in 2016 and 2021, which expanded access to the drug.

In the case Doe v. Hanover County School Board, the plaintiff was an eleven-year-old transgender girl identified as Janie Doe. Janie sought a preliminary injunction against the Hanover County School Board after disputes arose concerning her gender identity and recognition in school. Janie has identified and presented as female since the age of seven, and obtained an amended birth certificate reflecting her legal sex as female.

In Vlaming v. West Point School Board, the plaintiff, a high school French teacher, refused to use a transgender student’s affirmed pronouns. He believed that doing so would conflict with his religious conviction that pronouns should align with sex assigned at birth. After repeated warnings, the school board terminated his employment for failing to comply with its policy requiring staff to use students’ affirmed pronouns.

The victim and her husband lived with the appellant and the appellant’s girlfriend. The victim, accompanied by her sister, came home and knocked on the door to be let in because the door was latched. The appellant opened the door, and then he grabbed the victim’s breasts and twisted “as hard as he could” for about a minute. The appellant was charged and convicted of sexual battery, which requires proving that the accused sexually abused someone with nonconsensual force. On appeal, he contended that the evidence did not support finding that the force requirement was met.

In Parker v. Commonwealth, the appellant was in a rocky, abusive relationship with the victim since 1989. He had been convicted of stalking the victim under a prior version of § 18.2-60.3 in 1994. He was in jail in 1995, and he proceeded to repeatedly call the victim over the course of a few days.

In the case Nelson v. Commonwealth, the appellant, who was dating the 14-year-old victim’s cousin, showed the victim an explicit picture of his genitals and later touched her genitals while she slept. The appellant was convicted of aggravated sexual battery in the trial court, and he appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to prove the element of force. Aggravated sexual battery requires proving that the accused intentionally sexually molested a victim who is between 13 and 15 years old through nonconsensual force.

In the case Leonard v. Commonwealth, 296 Va. 479 (2018), a transgender inmate was seeking a name change. Inmates seeking a name change must establish good cause, which then permits the court to make a merits-based decision at a hearing. If an applicant alleges sufficient facts, taken as true, then the court must find good cause. The applicant stated that she was transgender and that a name change would psychologically benefit her. The lower court denied her application without scheduling a hearing for lack of good cause.

An unmarried but long-term lesbian couple had a child together. The non-biological mother never attempted to adopt the child. After several years, the couple split, and the biological mother retained custody. The non-biological mother sued, claiming that her constitutional rights were violated, as she should legally be considered a parent due to her close relationship to the child.

In Doe v. Doe, 222 Va. 736 (1981), the appellee, the child’s father and stepmother, had permanent custody and sought adoption of the child because the appellant-mother was in a lesbian relationship in the same household that the child visited in. The lower court granted the adoption and severed the appellant’s parental rights, stating that her lifestyle would cause detrimental harm to the child.

Article I, Section 15-A of the Virginia Constitution, known as the Marshall/Newman Amendment, limits marriage to the union of one man and one woman. It also barred same-sex couples from marrying in Virginia and prohibited recognition of same-sex marriages that were performed in other jurisdictions.