SCOTUS says states can ban trans athletes from girls’ sports
This one seems like a no-brainer, but of course because of politics it’s not.
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states can bar transgender female competitors from playing girls’ sports in a landmark decision with major implications for more than half the country, where such policies are in place.
In a 6-3 opinion, the high court determined that neither Idaho nor West Virginia had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment with their bans, as well as that Title IX allowed states to separate sports teams on the basis of biological sex.
What is interesting, though, is that even the three liberal justices weren’t completely onboard with not allowing states to ban trans athletes playing in girls’ sports. They thought states could ban the practice, but only for narrow reasons:
The three liberal justices would have allowed the states to proceed with their bans under a much narrower legal rationale that would have left the laws more susceptible to future challenges.
“West Virginia may well have satisfied its burden and seen its ban upheld. The point, rather, is that this Court’s equal protection precedents require a very different approach … than the one the majority follows today,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in her dissent. …
The liberals contended that the high court should have just stuck with West Virginia plaintiff Becky Pepper-Jackson’s concession that “sex” under the Title IX statute means “biological sex” assigned at birth, and not decided the constitutional question.
The article states that 27 states have similar bans. It also states this, which I believe is incorrect:
In West Virginia, Pepper-Jackson’s mother fought against the state’s Save Women’s Sports Act after her child underwent gender reassignment surgery during the third grade, prior to going through male puberty.
A lot of minors have undergone “gender reassignment surgery” while still underage. But I have never heard of anyone having it as early as third grade, and Pepper-Jackson did not, either. Pepper-Jackson was treated initially with puberty blockers and then with female hormones, the common practice for males who identify as trans females and want to avoid puberty. I’ve written about this several times; the idea is that once boys undergo male puberty it is very difficult to “pass” as female on matter how much they try (unless they are naturally quite small and slight), but it’s much easier when male puberty is avoided. This has enormous costs, among them the tendency to not be able to experience sexual fulfillment. I consider it a form of child abuse by the medical establishment.
However, the argument is that without having undergone male puberty, a male doesn’t have the testosterone advantage in sports and therefore it would be okay for that person to compete against women. Not so, says this group of pediatricians. The gist of the article – which is long – is that many of the differences between males and females which favor males in athletics occur prior to puberty and do not go away if puberty is blocked and female hormones administered.
Lefty friends all pissed off on this ruling, though very happy about the birthright citizenship. They actually claim there’s no evidence whatsoever of a Trans male having an advantage over a woman. Tell that to Riley Gaines or the volleyball players in California. I suspect none of them have a daughter who is an athlete.
It should be a no brainer. That alone uniquely qualifies certain people for politics!
We were blessed with a daughter and a son. As early as ULTRASOUNDS, medicine used different metrics to assess male and female fetuses’ growth.
Boys are bigger. And of course, we had two different growth charts to compare at every pediatrician appointment.
Anecdotally, I was naturally a very fast sprinter. I never raced a girl that I didn’t beat, although this was informal kids playing in the neighborhood and setting up our own contests—my school had no girl’s track team. And I beat a lot of boys, too, but even at ages 8 or 10, about a third of the boys would win.
BPJ’s mother should be arrested for child abuse.
What is “trans”? Can a guy just claim it without showing a complicated medical history starting about age twelve? Can a complete, unmodified male compete as “trans” in womens’ sports simply on his own assertion? Seems that too many of these activists are mooning over the prospect of complete males leering at women in their locker rooms and showers. That’s all it takes for public restrooms, right? The guy just grins and insists he “feels like a woman.
She transed her son in the third grade? What’s that…9 years old?
This shouldn’t have been a case about “trans rights”, this should have been a case about child abuse and mom should have been sentenced to about a decade in prison.
“her child underwent gender reassignment surgery during the third grade”
How do you reassign a gender since gender is imaginary?
Ray:
Brain surgery, it’s all in the noggin after all, f’en nuts.
Om,
When I worked in Germany, I took German lessons and was taught German nouns had gender, masculine, feminine and neuter. Nobody could ever explain how gender benefited the language. Now I’m being told humans have gender, but nobody can explain the physical basis.
I recall a demonstration a couple of years ago… A young couple were saying, proudly, that all their three children were trans and, “We couldn’t be prouder.” Shudder to think what’s going to happen to those poor kids.
physicsguy: I suspect none of them have a daughter who is an athlete.
I’d bet that too!
It reminds me of a co-worker I had years ago. She was a very nice lady; but, rather left of center when it came to politics. She hated toys like Barbie because, as she said, it distorted a young girl’s view of what the “ideal” female body should look like.
However, she also admitted that all that changed when she had her daughter and she just couldn’t deny or in any other way take away her daughter’s joy when playing with Barbie. At least she was open minded enough, and caring enough (as good parents should be), to put her daughter’s happiness above any political or other ideological viewpoint.