Supreme Court decision against trans athletes an ‘added cruelty in a season filled with it’

The United States Supreme Court on Tuesday ended two cases that have been a focus of trans inclusion discussions for most of the decade. With a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that states could ban transgender girls and women from women’s sports.

The decisions came in these cases:  Little vs. Hecox, the Idaho case built from the first state law to ban trans girls and women for school sports in 2020, and West Virginia vs. BPJ, a challenge to West Virginia’s “Save Women’s Sports” law from 2021. Now both of the states can proceed with bans effective in the next school year.

The court rooted their decision on the contention that such bans are not a violation of Title IX. They also rejected claims that the bans violated the constitutional rights of both Lindsey Hecox and Becky Pepper-Jackson, the transgender student-athletes who have challenged these bans in their states.

Related

Supreme Court decision against trans athletes an ‘added cruelty in a season filled with it’
It’s not confined to sports. The Supreme Court’s ruling on trans athletes will affect all transgender Americans.

Supreme Court decision against trans athletes an ‘added cruelty in a season filled with it’
It’s not confined to sports. The Supreme Court’s ruling on trans athletes will affect all transgender Americans.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, in writing the majority opinion, set up a dividing line not just for this issue but many others to come.

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“States’ interests in ensuring safety and competitive fairness amply justify the States in maintaining women’s and girls’ sports for biological females,” Kavanaugh wrote. “Under the Equal Protection Clause, therefore, schools may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex.”

One decision in two different Americas

In anti-trans America, it was the perfect way to end the Pride month, which they loathe.

The Alliance Defending Freedom’s lawyers are sipping champagne celebrating an objective they’ve fought for more than six years. There are 29 states with trans athlete bans. The Alliance has 21 remaining states to consider and legislators ready to take their cut-and-paste bills into battle with the Supreme Court on their side.

They also perhaps are raising a toast to demeaning kids they’ll never look in the eye. Supporting activists in their crusade like Jennifer Sey and Riley Gaines are selling the spin of their victory.

Ballot initiatives like the ones in Washington and Nevada seeking to make bans into law now race into the fall campaign. Republican legislators see a federal ban they can maybe get passed and signed, in addition to a campaign issue, with control of Congress at stake.

In transgender America? There’s definitely not much joy on the last day of Pride.

For a certain sophomore at Bridgeport High School, W.Va. this decision hits hard. Becky Pepper-Jackson is 16 now. She’s fought in courtrooms for her right to be herself and play sports since she was 11.

Last month, she was eligible like any other high school girl in West Virginia, and won a state title in the shot put. She won’t have the chance to defend that title next year and certain advocates would like to take away what she’s already earned in sports.

A parent of a trans child posted about their fears on my Threads account this morning after the decision was rendered. “I sent my husband a similar text this morning,” the post said. “We knew it was coming but it just added so much fuel to the fire of hate. Gotta make sure kid doesn’t see it before therapy today. So glad we have an appointment.”

This decision, and the constitutional issues it affects, begs the question of what comes next? How will transgender children be treated in a school, for example, whether they play a sport or not?

Today was just more added cruelty in a season filled with it and with schools set to open in the next two months. This decision is in addition to the Skermetti decision, which upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender affirming care, or the growing bills designed to “protect parental rights” unless said parent affirms a trans child.

Don’t forget the additional cheap shot from Justice Clarence Thomas in support of the decision.
“Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are,” he wrote in a concurring opinion.

My frustrations with it all

Actor Scott Turner Schofield, the creator of the stage show “Becoming a Man in 127 Easy Steps,” called the court’s actions “Another WTF Day in American History.”

2019 NCAA Champion CeCé Telfer said via Threads, “Tired of fighting for my right to exist, but I gotta keep going ’cause who else gone fight for me but me?”

I’m right there with them in the pain and the hurt. I shouldn’t have been totally surprised by the Court’s conservative majority. They told us who they were at the hearings for this case in January. I decried those hearings as “an unserious exercise with a large conservative thumb on the scale.”

The contempt, willful ignorance and contradictions were evident.

Early in his opinion, Kavanaugh writes on how actually taking in evidence-based data based on trans people playing sports “would be an almost impossible task for a judge to perform on an equitable basis,” he nonetheless accepts all the misleading and extrapolated data used by governing bodies folding under political pressure to ban trans women athletes.

Just like at the January hearings, the conservative majority constantly harped on “male advantage,” “biological males,” and the constant insinuation that transgender girls and women transition strictly to “steal trophies away” from cisgender girls.

This only strengthens the belief I maintain as an athlete and a sports journalist that governing bodies building evidence-driven, sports-specific policies are better for sports for everyone than politicians and activists pursuing political agendas.

As a transgender American, I’m certainly not having that “Rally ‘Round The Flag” feeling with July 4 approaching.

At its face, this is a decision on trans youth, but it rarely ends at just one objective for the people pushing this. Those opposed to trans rights have always had an underlying goal to redefine trans people as a threat to be dealt with rather than fellow citizens.

I’m in my 50s, but today leaves me as frustrated and scared as many of these youngsters must be.

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