Young Trans Athletes Targeted by State Laws Go to Supreme Court
Leading Off: Cases from West Virginia and Idaho have potentially vast repercussions. One law was aimed at a single girl. Another opens all girls, cis or trans, to eye-opening invasive actions. The week’s top story.
by Assigned Media
The US Supreme Court will hear two very important cases tomorrow centered around trans people in sports. The cases, from Idaho and West Virginia, were each brought by young trans athletes and their allies, challenging bans in their respective states. Each case was ruled in the trans athletes’ favor in lower courts, but have been appealed to the Supreme Court by their states.
The West Virginia case revolves around Becky Pepper-Jackson, 15, who was the only trans athlete in the state at the time of the ban’s enactment in 2021. In their brief to the court, her lawyers said of the targeted ban, “Rarely has there been such a disconnect between a law’s actual operation and the claimed justifications for it.”
“In West Virginia’s telling,” her lawyers said, “it passed H.B. 3293 to ‘save women’s sports’ by staving off an impending tidal wave of ‘bigger, faster, and stronger males’ from stealing championships, scholarships, and opportunities from female athletes. In reality, West Virginia’s law banned exactly one sixth-grade transgender girl from participating on her school’s cross-country and track-and-field teams with her friends.”
The Idaho case, brought in 2020 by Lindsay Hecox and an unnamed cisgender high school student, opposes a sports ban similar to the one in West Virginia. Among other points, the plaintiffs note that enforcement of such a ban would necessarily subject all female athletes, trans or cis, to deep invasion of privacy if anyone, even a bystander, questions them.
“H.B. 500 also includes invasive sex-verification requirements for ‘dispute[s]’” her lawyers note. ”When a girl’s sex is ‘disputed’ —by any person, be it the opposing team or bystanders—the Act requires that such dispute be ‘resolved’ by looking to the student’s ‘reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.’”
“Under this verification procedure,” they added, “the student may be required to undergo invasive tests, including a pelvic examination, that fall well outside “any routine sports physical.’”
Trans kids who challenge these discriminatory bans have remarkable courage, as this CNN story about Becky Pepper-Jackson reflects. “I know that I can handle it and it’s never crossed my mind to stop,” she said. “because I know I’m doing it for everybody.”
The final version of bipartisan spending bills has removed language which would restrict access to gender affirming care in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program, allowing continued access to this care for federal employees, as well as their families.
This development, initially reported by the Independent’s Eric Michael Garcia on Bluesky, continues the trend of Democratic party negotiators working to limit anti-trans riders in large congressional spending bills. In this case, it follows months of pushback against the original language of the bills, including a legal complaint brought just two weeks ago by the Human Rights Campaign.
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