WASHINGTON – Khadijah M. Silver (they/them), civil rights attorney and Director of Gender Justice & Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government (L4GG), issued the following statement in response to today's Supreme Court decision upholding state bans on transgender athletes participating in girls' and women's school sports:
“This is a devastating ruling for transgender people, for civil rights, and for everyone who believes the Constitution means what it says.
“These were not abstract legal questions. They were about whether a teenage girl could run cross-country with her friends. They were about whether a student athlete could compete on her college team.
“The Court's answer — that states can categorically exclude transgender girls and women from sports and that the definition of sex within Title IX is strictly defined as your sex assigned at birth — is wrong on its interpretation of the law, wrong on the science, and wrong on the values that should govern how we treat the most vulnerable members of our communities.
“We are especially alarmed by the implications for every girl and woman, transgender or not. These bans have already led to gender policing and harassment of athletes who simply don't fit someone's stereotype of femininity. And Black women and girls have historically been disproportionately targeted by this kind of scrutiny. A ruling that sanctions categorical exclusion based on a rigid, government-defined definition of sex puts every person's freedom at risk.
“No court order can erase the existence of transgender people. And we will not stop fighting until every person can make autonomous choices about their own body, their own health, and their own life: free from government intrusion, coercion, or fear.”
L4GG’s Gender Justice & Health Equity team will immediately analyze the full scope of the decision and its implications across every area of law it tracks: healthcare, employment, education, family law, identity documents.
“Attacks on transgender rights and attacks on gender justice and equality are a part of the same fight. Both are rooted in the belief that the government can and should control our bodies,” Silver added. “Today's ruling is the latest and most serious expression of that belief from the nation's highest court. We refuse to accept it as the final word.”
Please visit L4GG’s Policy Resource Hub for Transgender Rights for real time updates. You can also follow our work with L4GG’s Pro Bono Litigation Corps, as well as with coalition partners, to identify every available avenue of resistance — in the courts, in the states, and in the streets.