The Supreme Court Is Skeptical of Trans Athletes’ Rights |
The Supreme Court appears likely to uphold laws in Idaho and West Virginia that forbid some transgender students from participating in school sports, but the court’s conservative members seemed divided on how comprehensive the defeat for transgender rights would be.
During oral arguments on Tuesday, Justice Brett Kavanaugh indicated that he supported letting each state decide its own approach to transgender student-athletes. “A lot of states allow biological males who identify as female, transgender women and girls, to play in women’s and girls’ sports,” he told Hashim Mooppan, who represented the Trump administration, noting that he thought it might not violate the Fourteenth Amendment’s equal protection clause.
That outcome would follow a familiar pattern for Kavanaugh, who emphasized in his concurring opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade, that he believed the Constitution was “neutral” on abortion. Other members of the court, however, appeared to be angling for a stronger stand against transgender Americans.
Justice Samuel Alito’s questions for one of the athletes’ lawyers were particularly hostile. “There are an awful lot of female athletes who are strongly opposed to participation by trans athletes in competitions with them,” he asked Kathleen Hartnett, who represented the student who is challenging Idaho’s ban. “What do you say about them? Are they bigots? Are they deluded in thinking that they are subjected to unfair competition?” Hartnett said she would not describe them as such.
Tuesday’s session centered around two separate but similar cases. Little v. Hecox came from an equal protection clause lawsuit by Lindsay Hecox, an Idaho college student who played intramural women’s club soccer at Boise State University. She had previously sought and obtained an injunction from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to try out for the school’s track-and-field program, but did not make the team.
Hecox began to undergo medical gender-transition treatments as a first-year student, including medication to suppress........