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Supreme Court rules for transgender girl in school sports dispute

A student and athlete run during track practice at Highland High School in Albuquerque, N.M. on Feb. 28, 2023. The Biden administration proposed a rule change under Title IX that would prohibit schools from "categorically" banning transgender students from athletic teams that are consistent with their gender identities.  (New York Times)
By Adam Liptak New York Times

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a transgender girl may compete on the girls cross country and track teams at her middle school in West Virginia while her appeal moved forward, signaling that a majority of the justices is not ready to enter another battleground in the culture wars.

The Supreme Court’s brief order, which let stand an appeals court’s temporary injunction, gave no reasons, which is not unusual when the justices rule on emergency applications filed on what critics call the court’s shadow docket.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, issued a dissenting opinion indicating that states are entitled to enact laws “restricting participation in women’s or girls sports based on genes or physiological or anatomical characteristics.”

The case, involving conflicting conceptions of inclusiveness and fairness in sports, arose from a 2021 law in West Virginia that barred boys from competing on girls teams in public schools. The law made distinctions based on what it called “biological sex,” which it defined as “an individual’s physical form as a male or female based solely on the individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

Lawyers for Becky Pepper-Jackson, then an 11-year-old preparing to enter the sixth grade, sued soon after the law came into effect, saying it discriminated against transgender girls.

Judge Joseph R. Goodwin, of the U.S. District Court in Charleston, West Virginia, initially sided with Becky, issuing a preliminary injunction allowing her to compete for more than a year and a half as the case moved forward, before ultimately ruling that the state law did not run afoul of the Constitution or a federal law barring sex discrimination in education.

A divided three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, in Richmond, Virginia, issued a one-sentence order allowing Becky to continue to compete while an appeal moved forward. The spring track and field season began in February.

Lawyers for the state then asked the Supreme Court to step in.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.