Supreme Court lets states ban transgender athletes from playing on girls sports teams

(CNN) – The Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that states may bar transgender students from playing on girls sports teams, delivering the latest in a series of legal defeats to trans Americans amid a political backlash in conservative states that has accelerated at a dramatic pace in recent years.

The court was 6-3 along ideological lines on the issue of whether the Constitution bars the states from banning transgender sports. However, the court’s liberals were in the majority on a separate question of whether the state bans were barred by a federal law.

The decision in the court’s most closely watched culture war dispute of the term means that laws in more than half of US states that are similar to those enacted in West Virginia and Idaho will also likely stand. The conservative states say the laws are intended to ensure biological female athletes can compete on an even playing field.

The ruling was a major defeat for the LGBTQ movement at the conservative Supreme Court, and it came a year after the justices allowed states to ban transgender care for minors, such as puberty blockers and hormone therapy. Since then, the court has permitted President Donald Trump to ban transgender Americans from serving in the military and allowed the administration to require sex-at-birth markers on US passports.

While the case dealt with laws in two states, the court’s decision will have implications for more than half the nation. Some 27 states have enacted laws similar to those on the books in West Virginia and Idaho, with officials there arguing the laws promote both safety and fairness for cisgender girls.

“The legislatures and the schools are better equipped — and under the Constitution, are the more appropriate entities — to assess the competing medical and scientific considerations and draw appropriate lines,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his majority opinion.

The-CNN-Wire
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