Washington – The Supreme Court agreed on Thursday to evaluate the growing controversy over transgender athletes and decide whether the federal law prohibits transgender girls from women's school sports teams.
“Biological children should not compete in girls' athletics teams,” said West Virginia attorney in an appeal that the court voted to listen.
The appeal had the support of other 26 states led by Republicans, as well as President Trump.
In recent weeks, Trump threatened to cut the educational funds to California because a transgender athlete participated in a female athletics competition.
Four years ago, West Virginia adopted its Save Save Women Sports Law, but the measure has been blocked as discriminatory by the 4th circuit court in the 2-1 decision.
Idaho presented a similar appeal after his law was blocked by the ninth circuit court in San Francisco. The court said that he would listen to that case together with the case of West Virginia.
In question, it is the meaning of title IX, the Federal Education Law to which the opening of the door has been accredited to the vast expansion of women's sports. They were told to schools and schools that should give girls equal opportunities in athletics by providing separate sports equipment.
However, in the last decade, the states and their schools were divided on the question of who can participate in the team of girls. Are only those that were girls at birth or can they also include those whose gender identity is a woman?
Western Virginia told the court that “the legislature concluded that biological children should compete in the teams of children and mixed, but not in girls' teams. This separation made sense, according to the legislature, due to the” inherent physical differences between biological men and biological females. “
California and most democratic states allow transgender girls to compete in sports competitions for women.
In 2013, the legislature said that a student “will be allowed to participate in school programs and activities segregated by sex, including sports teams and competitions … according to their gender identity.”
The Supreme Court had postponed a decision on this issue, while the division between the states grew.
Two years ago, the judges rejected an appeal of rapid route of West Virginia's lawyers in a 7-2 vote and allowed a 12-year-old transgender girl to run in the Cross Country team.
Becky Pepper-Jackson and her mother sued after the school's director said she was prohibited by the law of the State to compete in girls' teams in her high school in Bridgeport, W. Va.
She “has lived as a girl in all aspects of her life for years and receives treatment so that not delay puberty and hormonal estrogen therapy, so she has not experienced (and will not experience) endogenous puberty,” said his mother in support of his demand.
ACLU lawyers said the court should be aside. They said BPJ was anxious to participate in sports, but that it was “too slow to compete in the events of the track” in the women's team.
Last year, Virginia Occidental tried again and urged the Supreme Court to review the decision of the 4th circuit and maintain their restrictions on transgender athletes.
State prosecutors also said that the possible high school athlete had become a track star.
“This spring, BPJ placed the first three in each event in the event in which BPJ competed, winning the majority. BPJ beat more than 100 girls, moving them more than 250 times while refusing multiple points and girls medals in the conference championship. BPJ won the release of shots for more than three feet while placing second on the disc,” they told the court.
Last year, the court chose to govern first in a case of Tennessee to decide whether states can prohibit puberty blockers, hormones and other medical treatments for young adolescents who are diagnosed with gender dysphoria.
On June 18, the conservative majority of the court said that state legislators had the authority to restrict medical treatments for adolescents who were diagnosed with gender dysphoria, pointing out the ongoing debate on long -term risks and benefits. The ruling became on the side of the statement that the law reflected unconstitutional sexual discrimination.
On Thursday, the judges published their list of final orders before their summer recreation with the review of the new cases that will be heard in the fall. The cases of Western Virginia vs. BJP and Little vs. Hecox
In response to the appeals, ACLU lawyers accused the state of seeking to “create a false sense of national emergency” based on a “legal challenge of a transgender girl.”
The lawsuit said the State measure was “part of a national effort to attack transgender young people for unequal treatment.” The lawsuit argued that the law violated title IX and was unconstitutional because it discriminated against athletes based on their gender identity.
West Virginia's lawyers saw a threat to title IX and women's sports.
They said that the decisions that defended transgender rights “took a law designed to guarantee significant competitive opportunities for women and girls, based on biological differences, and created it on a lever so that men made their way to the sports teams of girls depending on identity, destroying the opportunities that title IX was destined to protect.”
