[cross posted on After Atalanta]
Though the Supreme Court ruling allowing states to ban trans girls and women from school-sponsored sports was not surprising, it is disappointing. We can know something horrible and frightening and violent is coming and still be sad and angry and despondent when it arrives. (Remember those months between the 2024 election and the inauguration??)
As many have said in the lead up to this case and the intervening months since the arguments and now that the decision has been released, it is children who will suffer the most from this decision. I wonder if starkness of this discrimination is greater now that the ruling has been issued? Will anyone pause and say: wait, we allow every other kid to play sports regardless of ability and differences* in biology, but not these kids because we hold certain (unfounded) beliefs about what they can do? The complete obfuscation of the range of human abilities that are based on SO MANY factors that are impossible to disaggregate by the court is astounding.
Many, many other people and organizations re writing about this so to keep it short, I end with two quick reminders:
1. This WILL affect all girls and so by that logic (as the lower courts pointed out) it does discriminate on the basis of sex because only girls will be subject to verification. But what that verification looks like is unknown and I assume will differ across states. But it will be invasive and a form of violence. The government sanctioned surveillance of women's and girls' bodies continues rather shamelessly.
2. This is the latest legal ruling that serves the longer conservative plan to eradicate trans people. By denying rights and legal status to trans people, by enshrining legal discrimination, it is clear that their goal is to take away personhood.
Right now this ruling, because it included reference to Title IX, only applies to schools receiving federal funding. While, of course, school sports should be inclusive, in places which uphold or create bans on trans girls, pro-inclusion folks can make other options available--for free. It does not make the ruling--and the ideology behind it--ok, but creativity and action in the face of oppression can be empowering; it can create community; it can create change.
* I know inclusive and adaptive sports vary in availability and successful implementation, but there is a law that says that people with disabilities must be accommodated. This is a great time for me to heartily (re?)recommend Crip Camp (available on Netflix) for a great history of the disability rights movement in the United States as well as how it takes just a smidge of creativity and an inclusive mindset to enact inclusion.
