The Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a pair of cases over transgender student athletes' rights in Idaho and West Virginia. The two states are among several Republican-run states with blanket bans prohibiting transgender youth from participating in school athletics.
That the present Republican majority will rule against the two girls is sadly a foregone conclusion; the only suspense is whether their ruling will be so broad as to prevent transgender students from athletic activities anywhere, or so narrow as to apply only to Idaho and West Virginia.
The primary concern of the majority justices appears to be how the lawyers arguing on behalf of the two athletes want to define what a female is and whether laws prohibiting gender discrimination apply to that definition. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are predictably hostile to non-cisgender, non-heterosexual plaintiffs, but former girls’ basketball coach Brett Kavanaugh took a moment to offer sympathy to transgender student athletes. That sympathy, however, is countered by his sympathy for hypothetical cisgender student athletes who don't make the team:
“I hate–hate that a kid who wants to play sports might not be able to play sports. I hate that,” Kavanaugh said. “But … it’s kind of a zero-sum game for a lot of teams. And someone who tries out and makes it, who is a transgender girl, will bump from the starting lineup, from playing time, from the team, from the all league, and those things matter to people big time, will bump someone else.”
“We have to recognize on both sides the zero-sum. It’s not like, ‘Oh, just add another person to the team.’ That’s not how sports works. ... Someone else is going to get disadvantaged.”
It’s a shame that there isn’t enough room on a team’s bench for everybody who was promised a seat.
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