The Supreme Court majority’s radicalization on trans issues has become apparent not just in its unusual willingness to take up so many cases on the topic, but in its eagerness to shoehorn anti-trans refrains into unrelated cases.
Justice Samuel Alito, dissatisfied with the double header cases on trans women in sports before him, pivoted to an anti-trans monologue Tuesday that had nothing to do with the facts at hand.
“This does present a particular factual situation and we have to decide that case, but looking to the broader issue that a lot of people are interested in,” he began ominously, “there are an awful lot of female athletes who are strongly opposed to participation by trans athletes in competitions with them. What do you say about them? Are they bigots? Are they deluded in thinking that they are subjected to unfair competition?”
He seems to be referring to the women, including former collegiate swimmer-turned-MAGA star Riley Gaines, who have made something of a career out of the anti-trans women in sports speaking circuit. He, tellingly, omits the hundreds of women athletes who support the inclusion of trans competitors, but who are less likely to be featured so prominently in conservative media.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, sensing that the Court was taking a break from the actual legal challenges presented, chimed in with a gentler sounding old anti-trans chestnut.
“One of the great successes in America over the last 50 years has been the growth of women and girls’ sports — it’s inspiring,” he said. “There are some states and the federal government and the NCAA and the Olympic Committee — these are a variety of groups that study this issue — think that allowing transgender women and girls to participate will undermine or reverse that amazing success and will create unfairness.”
Both the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the NCAA banned trans women from participating due to President Trump’s executive orders. It’s unclear which studies he’s referring to; the IOC has funded several on trans women athletes, which have found mixed results on questions such as the advantages and disadvantages to cisgender women in areas including handgrip and lung function.
Kavanaugh also bemoaned the fate of the individual cis girl who loses a game or a spot on the team because of a trans girl’s participation.
“No one likes to lose, no one likes to not make the team. Cisgender girls don’t make the team when competing against other cisgender girls all the time,” Joshua Block, lawyer for a trans middle schooler in West Virginia, replied. “The question, I think, is whether it’s an unfair advantage to not make the team because a transgender girl participated — and if there is no sex-based biological distinction there, then I think it’s an unfortunate situation, but it’s an unfortunate situation that comes with having a zero sum game.”
Justice Amy Coney Barrett played a supporting role, repeatedly bringing up a scenario of a cisgender boy who fails to make the boys’ team trying for the girls’ instead. Chief Justice John Roberts warned that greenlighting these challenges to the trans women in sports bans would create a slippery slope, inviting challenges to anything that differentiates between girls and boys.
Still, they’re all competing for most bad faith anti-trans jab with Justice Clarence Thomas, who wrote multiple pages in 2025’s U.S. v. Skrmetti fearmongering about the use of surgery for trans minors.
“The use of surgery to treat gender dysphoria, which Justice Thomas addresses in some detail, is not at issue in this case,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a curt footnote.
When Panic Ruled: the Roberts Court.
Nothing like some grown men who are going to mess up a lot of lives because anything other than occasional, missionary position sex just scares the shit out of them, and it makes them feel icky.
Seems like I heard a bit of news on NPR this week about a study done in England which is proving that trans women in sports MAKES NO DIFFERENCE. If they are good athletes, they win, if they aren’t they lose…just like every woman on the team.
Gotta look that up and see if I can find the origin of that study.
You know the sports issue is more complicated than Fox news or right wingers vs the world. The reason there are mens competitions and womens competitions is that otherwise women would NEVER win anything. Look at marathon runners or sprinters or skiers or many many other sports the mens times are faster, longer higher whatever. Putting gender identified is not the same as biological sex which for physical acts like sports there is an advantage to the Y chromosome leading to larger bones, less body percent fat and taller, etc. and it makes a difference. Respect Trans people allow them to define themselves – but have a binary or no sex defined category for them to compete in – that’s what the NY Road Runners has for their marathons. Men’s Women’s and binary.
Trans rights, another small culture war allowing Republicans to drive a wedge between working class people and Democrats. It feels like ground hogs day.
Working class, people ARE Democrats.
But I think you understand their playbook