The Supreme Court is still on its three-month summer recess but already has loaded its docket with high-stakes legal battles for its term that begins in October.

“There are already a couple of cases on the Court’s merits docket for the new term that are likely to generate lots of headlines: cases about gender-affirming health care for transgender adolescents and federal gun regulations,” said Brianne Gorod, chief counsel with the Constitutional Accountability Center. “But this term, just like every term at the court, also promises to have a number of cases that don’t generate huge headlines but are still incredibly important.”

Court watchers say the six most notable cases granted review so far are:

Treatment for transgender minors

In U.S. v. Skrmetti, the justices will consider a dispute over Tennessee’s ban on gender transition medical treatment for minors — specifically, a prohibition on puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and sex transition surgeries.

The case has become a major battleground. The Justice Department and the American Civil Liberties Union are opposing state bans on the treatments for minors over concerns about safety and health.

The ACLU said courts have rejected state bans on medical treatment for transgender youths in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky and Indiana.

The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals allowed Tennessee’s ban to take effect.

The Tennessee case was brought by three transgender minors, their parents and a doctor who had 16 transgender youths as patients who are challenging the ban.

Ghost gun regulations

The justices will consider regulations on ghost guns — firearms that can be assembled at home and lack serial numbers — when it hears arguments in Merrick Garland v. Jennifer VanDerStok.

The Biden administration asked the justices to review the case after a federal appellate court struck down a regulation on the sale of kits to make ghost guns, saying it stretched the definition of “firearm” in the Gun Control Act of 1968.

The administration in 2022 announced a regulation that reinterpreted the 1968 law to cover the kits. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has long considered frames or receivers that could be made operable with a few quick alterations to be firearms. The government argued that the kits fall under that category.

ATF’s rule was challenged by gun rights groups and companies that sell the kits. The groups won an injunction at the lower court level, but the Supreme Court put it on hold while the litigation is pending, allowing the rule to take effect.

The high court has heard several gun-related cases in recent terms. It ruled in June that a dangerous person can be temporarily disarmed without violating the Second Amendment in a high-profile case over a law that disarms people under domestic violence restraining orders.

The justices in June ruled that a federal ban on bump stocks was unlawful. The government had banned bump stocks by classifying them as machine guns, which are outlawed under a decades-old gun control act.

Bump stocks are devices that allow semiautomatic firearms to operate at a high rate of speed, similar to machine guns.

“The bump stock case got a lot of attention last term, and I think this is similar — a statutory interpretation case — so it is not a Second Amendment case involving guns,” said Curt Levey, president of the Committee for Justice.

Age limits for porn websites

A case from Texas will have the justices deciding whether the state can bar minors from accessing pornographic websites by requiring users to enter personal information to verify their age.

Mr. Levey said this case is “going to be a big one that’s an issue across the nation.”

In Free Speech Coalition Inc. v. Paxton, the dispute centers on Texas H.B. 1181, which requires pornography companies to have age verification measures for users to access their sites. Users have to prove they are adults by showing identification or other methods.

The state’s goal was to deter the flow of adult images and materials to minors. A company that violates the state’s requirement could face civil fines of more than $10,000.

The Free Speech Coalition challenged the law, saying the age verification process infringes on adult use of pornographic sites by requiring too much personal information and runs afoul of the First Amendment.

A lower court sided with Texas.

Flavored vapes, e-cigarettes

The Food and Drug Administration’s denial of marketing authorization for flavored e-cigarettes or vapes by Triton Distribution will get scrutiny from the justices.

The company said the flavors would help adults switch to its products and away from traditional cigarettes, but the FDA said the flavors would attract minors and pose risks to public health.

A lower court sided against the FDA’s denial of the company’s marketing authorization, prompting the government to appeal to the high court.

The case is Food and Drug Administration v. Wages and White Lion Investments LLC, dba Triton Distribution, et al.

Facebook collection of user data

In Facebook Inc. v. Amalgamated Bank, the high court will review the alleged misuse of social network users’ data by the now-defunct political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

The private securities fraud class-action case comes to the justices after Facebook’s stock price fell when news reports emerged that Cambridge Analytica had leveraged users’ data to create voter profiles to aid the 2016 presidential campaigns of Sen. Ted Cruz and Donald Trump.

The case was brought by shareholders of Amalgamated Bank whose investments lost value when Facebook’s stock plummeted over the Cambridge Analytics data collection scandal.

The justices will decide what risk factors or past incidents a company has to disclose that could threaten its business.

Medical marijuana

The justices will review regulations on THC and CBD in a dispute between a company that produces cannabis-based products and a truck driver who lost his job over a positive drug test.

Douglas Horn and his wife sued Red Dice Holdings LLC, Medical Marijuana Inc. and Dixie Holdings LLC, which helped produce Dixie X, a hemp-based CBD supplement, after Mr. Horn tested positive for a random drug test as an employee for a commercial trucking business. He lost his job as a result of the positive test.

He had used the hemp product for inflammation and chronic pain stemming from a car accident after being unsatisfied with prescription medication. He said the Dixie X advertisement said it yielded 0% THC and was compliant with federal guidelines.

A lower court ruled in his favor, and the CBD company filed an appeal that has reached the high court.

Tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly known as THC, is the psychoactive compound in cannabis that produces the feeling of being high. It is prevalent in most forms of marijuana.

Cannabidiol, commonly known as CBD, is found in cannabis plants, such as hemp, and has been used as an herbal supplement to treat various ailments. CBD does not produce the high of marijuana.

The case is Medical Marijuana Inc., Dixie Holdings LLC, AKA Dixie Elixirs, Red Dice Holdings LLC, et. al. v. Douglas Horn.

Ilya Shapiro, director of constitutional studies at the Manhattan Institute, said high-profile cases are likely to be announced and added to the Supreme Court’s calendar.

“A lot of these cases are not going to be the ones we are going to be talking about in June,” Mr. Shapiro said of the cases the high court has granted review thus far.