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The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday against two transgender students who wanted to play sports with teams that aligned with their gender identity. Led by girls’ basketball coach, baseball fan, and occasional swing Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the majority opinion is filled with poetic homages to the greatness of American sports, a pastime so important that Kavanaugh clearly feels it can’t be sullied by the presence of even a single trans student athlete in an entire state. More than that, the court takes the opportunity to weaken sex discrimination principles across the law, all the while giving short shrift to the health of kids all over the country.

B.P.J. was a transgender student in the West Virginia public school system. Originally assigned male at birth, B.P.J., like over 1 million other kids throughout the country, discovered that she better identified as a girl. B.P.J.’s parents supported her transition across her home and school life. She began taking puberty blockers around elementary school and hormones in sixth grade. In 2021 West Virginia passed a law that banned all transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams. After B.P.J.’s middle school relied on this law to block her from playing sports, B.P.J. sued under civil rights law Title IX and the 14th Amendment. B.P.J. was allowed to participate in sports as the case went on, leading her to join the girls’ cross-country and track-and-field teams. In addition to the medical treatment she received, B.P.J. found that participation in sports played an essential role in her well-being. As her mother explained, B.P.J. “is the happiest I have ever seen her when she is accepted for who she is and able to participate in school sports.”

To see what happens when a student is not accepted for who they are, look no further than the other plaintiff in Tuesday’s case: L.H. Like B.P.J., L.H. was a trans woman student athlete. Unlike B.P.J., L.H.’s name was not anonymized in court documents. L.H. briefly tried out for the women’s club soccer, track, and cross-country teams at Boise State University, before Idaho passed a similar law banning trans women from sports.........

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