Source: Africa Publicity
The US Supreme Court has ruled that states can enforce laws preventing transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams if those teams do not match the sex assigned to them at birth.
The decision allows laws in Idaho and West Virginia to remain in effect. Both states require public school and university sports teams to be organised according to “biological sex” and prohibit “students of the male sex” from participating on female teams.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court reversed earlier decisions by lower courts that had sided with transgender students. Those students had argued that the state bans violated both the US Constitution and federal protections against discrimination.
The justices unanimously ruled, by a 9-0 vote, that the laws do not breach Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination in education “on the basis of sex.”
The court was more divided on the constitutional question, voting 6-3 that the laws also do not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
“Consistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the states may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females. They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex. The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America,” conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority.
