The Supreme Court sided with a middle school transgender girl against West Virginia on Thursday to allow the teenager to participate in girls’ sports while the lawsuit against the transgender law continued.
Conservative Justices Thomas Alito and Clarence Thomas issued a dissent described as “tepid.”
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of 12-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson, a transgender girl who has lived as a girl since the fourth grade. Attorneys argued that Pepper-Jackson had been welcome by coaches and other members of the girls’ track and field teams.
A judge previously found that the “Save Women’s Sports Act” was lawful because of the inherent differences between males and females.
“While some females may be able to outperform some males, it is generally accepted that, on average, males outperform females athletically because of inherent physical differences between the sexes,” wrote Federal District Court Judge Joseph R. Goodwin.
“This is not an overbroad generalization, but rather a general principle that realistically reflects the average physical differences between the sexes,” he added.
The ACLU and other litigants had won a preliminary order from the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the law while the appellate court took the case under consideration. This led to the attorney general of West Virginia to seek emergency relief from the Supreme Court.
On Thursday, the Supreme Court denied that request.
“Among other things, enforcement of the law at issue should not be forbidden by the federal courts without any explanation,” Justice Alito argued in his dissent.
The Associated Press reported that Pepper-Jackson “regularly” finishes in last place at the track and field events, apparently to argue that the child born as a male would not compete unfairly with others who were born female.
Here’s more about the Supreme Court ruling:
Supreme Court rejects West Virginia effort to ban trans students from girls’ sportswww.youtube.com
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