Brett Kavanaugh’s Anti-Trans Ruling Takes a New and Disturbing Turn
As Pride Month celebrations drew to a close on the last day of June, the Supreme Court delivered another blow to the LGBTQ+ movement. Earlier in its term, the court had backed anti-gay conversion therapy, undermined protections for transgender children in schools, and sided with the Trump administration’s refusal to let trans people use the appropriate gender markers on passports. In its most recent decision, the court denied a trial that would show whether transgender girls had an advantage over cisgender girls in sports.
Whatever one thinks of its merits—I happen to believe that the court got it wrong—the case represents a fundamental shift in the court’s treatment of trans people. For the first time, the court repeatedly referred to the plaintiffs as “biological males who identify as female.” Never before has it so entirely ignored, even rejected, a plaintiff’s characterization of the sex with which they identify.