The court left open the question of whether states should require, rather than simply allow, transgender women and girls to be kept away from women’s teams. The legal issue has gone to court.
President Trump and Republicans react to SCOTUS ruling on transgender women in sports
President Donald Trump reacted to the Supreme Court’s decision upholding a ban on transgender women playing on women’s sports teams.
WASHINGTON – Delivering the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in the most important culture war case of the semester, Justice Brett Kavanaugh expressed anger at the “supposed monopoly” his liberal colleagues have on understanding how the national debate over transgender athletes affects students.
“We are acutely aware of the challenges that boys who identify as girls (and girls who identify as boys) sometimes face in middle school, high school, and beyond,” Kavanaugh said in the court’s June 30 ruling that states are free to ban transgender girls from competing on girls’ teams.
But courts also need to consider how their participation raises concerns for the safety and fairness of team members, he said.
It won’t be long before judges need to consider these factors again.
The Supreme Court left open the question of whether states should require, rather than simply allow, transgender women and girls to be kept away from women’s teams. This legal issue is being heard separately by the High Court.
The justices also avoided a far-reaching ruling on transgender rights that would have implications far beyond the athletic realm.
Here’s a look at some of the major divisions and flashpoints in this case.
Brett Kavanaugh, aka “Coach K,” says he empathizes with both sides of the debate.
Kavanaugh, who has coached his daughters’ girls basketball teams for years, said his role as “Coach K” keeps him connected to the real world. He concluded his 29-page opinion by defending the reasons for excluding transgender women from women’s sports teams., They also express compassion for transgender students.
Anyone who asks what’s the harm in having transgender girls compete, he said, “misunderstands the nature and reality of sports,” which are “highly competitive and generally zero-sum.”
Every athlete who earns a spot on the team, in the starting lineup, or on the medal podium is taking that spot from someone else, he wrote.
But Kavanaugh also expressed concern for transgender students, noting that 27 states have decided that women don’t have to compete with what he called “biological males.”
Most of the athletes who participated in the competition pure white Kavanaugh said the discussion centered on teenagers and young adults, but that their desire to play sports “deserves to be respected.”
“No student-athlete on either side of this issue, whether biologically female or transgender, should be ostracized or vilified,” he wrote.
Clarence Thomas takes a more aggressive position, says gender cannot be changed
Even if Mr. Kavanaugh tried to soften the argument, Justice Clarence Thomas was not willing to do so.
“Men have no legal right to compete with women simply because they believe they are women,” Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion.
Thomas, one of the court’s most conservative members, echoed the Trump administration’s policy that there are only two genders, which are unchangeable and biologically determined.
To use language that obscures that reality, Thomas wrote, “is to lie to the public.”
LGBTQ+ supporters say they will keep fighting
Civil rights groups that opposed the state’s ban consoled themselves with the idea that the decision could have been much worse on their side.
The court simply ruled that states can ban transgender girls and women from women’s teams, not that they have to, based on both the Constitution and federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education.
The court also limited its ruling to the field of sports, and the fight over trans students’ access to bathrooms and locker rooms was deferred to another day.
And the court majority did not address whether transgender people as a group are entitled to stronger legal protections under the Constitution.
“What this means is that we can continue to advocate for the rights of transgender students under Title IX in other areas,” said Chris Ertschul, an attorney with the GLAD law firm.
Trump administration advances
But conservatives believe they have momentum.
“A blue state where a boy steps up to the podium with a girl…you’re next,” Kristen Wagoner, president of the Alliance Defending Freedom, posted on X after the ruling.
The group helped defend bans in Idaho and West Virginia, but is going after Connecticut, which has allowed transgender women to compete in women’s athletics.
The Trump administration has similarly sought to withhold federal funding from states that allow transgender women to join women’s teams.
The administration had asked the court to decide for now only whether the ban would be allowed, not whether it was necessary, but officials are already anticipating another round.
“We look forward to ensuring that all educational institutions in the United States comply with the laws of this country,” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said after the decision.
But Joshua Block, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney who argued against West Virginia students challenging that state’s law, found reason to be optimistic that the court might not ultimately rule that a ban is necessary.
“This decision emphasizes again and again that this is a policy issue that can reach different conclusions from state to state,” he told reporters last week.
Neil Gorsuch explains why past LGBTQ+ victories don’t help here
Despite the headwinds they faced in taking the case, transgender rights groups were hoping to build on a surprise victory in 2020, when a court sided with three employees who were fired for being gay or transgender.
In a case called Bostock v. Clayton County, a 6-3 majority ruled that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited workplace discrimination on the basis of “sex,” but that law also included sexual orientation and gender identity.
Block argued that the same argument should apply to Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs.
But Justice Neil Gorsuch, the conservative judge who wrote the 2020 decision, explained why he reached a different conclusion in the case.
Unlike the Civil Rights Act, Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion that Title IX recognizes that men and women are treated differently, especially in school sports.
“I appreciate that the issues surrounding transgender athletes’ participation in women’s and women’s sports have been the subject of intense national debate, as was the issue surrounding Bostock,” he wrote. “But our job here is not to resolve these arguments, but simply to faithfully apply the directives set forth in federal law.”
Liberal justices concurred with the ruling but dissented.
The court’s three liberal justices did not completely disagree with the conservative majority opinion.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, speaking for the minority, agreed that Title IX allows for single-sex sports teams.
But she spent many more pages explaining why the West Virginia student should have been given the chance to prove in court that the drugs he takes to prevent the onset of puberty and secondary sexual characteristics are responsible for his lack of natural athletic ability.
Sotomayor said he is not taking a position on whether students will be able to “show that science is fully on their side.” But the Constitution’s guarantee that similarly situated people should be treated equally should give her an opportunity to challenge it, Sotomayor wrote.
Kavanaugh countered that states do not need to make case-by-case exceptions to the ban because the ban is “constitutionally justified by the vital interests of safety and competitive fairness.”
