A 12-year-old transgender girl took legal action in 2021 to challenge a West Virginia state law that barred ‘male’ students, based on their ‘birth biology’, from joining competitions feminine.
The Supreme Court of the United States refused, Thursday, April 6, to urgently validate a law in West Virginia aimed at prohibiting young transgender girls from enrolling in women’s teams in their schools. Its decision, taken by a majority of seven judges out of nine, does not relate to the merits and does not include, as is customary in this type of case, explanations. Its two most conservative magistrates, Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, expressed their disagreement with the majority of their colleagues. “This case concerns an important subject which the Court will probably have to decide in the near future”they wrote.
The shutdown allows a 12-year-old transgender girl, Becky Pepper-Jackson, to stay on her college track team. In 2021, she went to court after her state, West Virginia, passed a law banning students defined as “male” on the basis of their “biology at birth” from joining competitions. women in their school. After several twists and turns, a Federal Court of Appeal decided on February 22 to freeze the law pending the examination of the merits of the case.
The Biden administration is preparing regulations on the subject
West Virginia then turned urgently to the Supreme Court. “In recent years, biological males who identify as female have increasingly beaten biological females in women’s competitions”wrote the State in its appeal, asking the Court to “protect fairness” in women’s sports. Becky Pepper-Jackson, who is receiving treatment to block her puberty, “has been on the women’s team at his school for three or four seasons and it hasn’t bothered anyone”had retorted the girl’s lawyers, noting that she always ends up at the back of the pack.
“We are grateful to the Supreme Court for recognizing that there was no urgency”the powerful civil rights organization ACLU commented in a statement.
The Biden administration, for its part, on Thursday released proposed regulations that would prevent schools and universities, dependent on federal funding, from completely banning transgender students from joining a sports team corresponding to the gender with which they identify. The text, which must be the subject of public consultation, however gives institutions, particularly in higher education, leeway to restrict the participation of transgender athletes at the highest levels of competition.
World Athletics, the international athletics federation, decided on March 23 to “to exclude from international women’s competitions male and female transgender athletes who have experienced male puberty”in the words of its president Sebastian Coe.
