U.S. Supreme Court declines to allow West Virginia transgender athlete ban (updated)

TATA Health International Holdings

06/04/2023 19:46

(Adds background, quotes from ACLU and West Virginia Attorney
General Patrick Morrisey)
    By Andrew Chung
       April 6 (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday
refused to let West Virginia enforce a state law banning
transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools,
one of many Republican-backed measures across the country
targeting LGBTQ rights. 
    The justices denied West Virginia's request to lift an
injunction against the law that a lower court had imposed while
litigation continues over its legality in a challenge brought by
a 12-year-old transgender girl, Becky Pepper-Jackson. Two
conservative justices, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas,
publicly dissented from the decision.
    The law, passed in 2021, designates sports teams at public
schools including universities according to "biological sex" and
bars male students from female athletic teams "based solely on
the individual's reproductive biology and genetics at birth."
    In the lawsuit, Pepper-Jackson and her mother Heather argued
that the law discriminates based on sex and transgender status
in violation of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee
of equal protection under the law as well as the Title IX civil
rights law that bars sex-based discrimination in education.
    West Virginia said in a court filing that it can lawfully
assign athletic teams by sex rather than gender identity "where
biological differences between males and females are the very
reason those separate teams exist."
    West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said he was
"deeply disappointed" by the decision but predicted the state
would ultimately prevail. "It's just basic fairness and common
sense to not have biological males play in women's sports," he
said. 
    "This was a baseless and cruel effort to keep Becky from
where she belongs–playing alongside her peers as a teammate and
as a friend," the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda
Legal, an LGBT legal group, said in a statement. The groups are
representing Pepper-Jackson along with the Cooley law firm.
    Pepper-Jackson, who attends a middle school in the West
Virginia city of Bridgeport, sued after being prohibited from
trying out for the girls' cross-country and track teams. 
        Republicans in various states have pursued a wave of
laws directed at LGBT people - limiting transgender
participation in sports, access to gender-affirming medical
care, and the teaching of subjects related to gender identity or
sexual orientation. A federal judge on Friday temporarily 
    blocked
     a Tennessee law restricting drag performances in public.
  
        The West Virginia case required the Supreme Court to
confront the issue of transgender rights - a major front in the
U.S. culture wars - in the wake of its 2020 
    ruling
     protecting gay and transgender employees under a
longstanding federal law barring workplace discrimination. 
  
        U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin initially blocked the
law, allowing Pepper-Jackson to participate on the teams. But
but in January the judge reversed course, finding that the state
measure was lawful. 
  
        The 4th Circuit subsequently issued an injunction while
the case proceeds.
  

 (Reporting by Andrew Chung in New York; editing by Jonathan
Oatis, Sandra Maler and David Gregorio)
 ((andrew.chung@thomsonreuters.com; 332.219.1428 ; 646.407.9441
mobile;))