Another wackadoodle, incredibly biased media piece from CNN. This is the norm from them on this issue.
When the Supreme Court, led by Justice Neil Gorsuch, ruled in 2020 that federal law protected transgender workers from discrimination, the justices appeared to launch a new era of rights for a historically shunned group.
LGBTQ advocates believed the core principle of Bostock v. Clayton County – that bias against transgender people amounts to unlawful sex discrimination – would extend beyond the workplace.
Bostock literally says in the decision that it does not extend beyond the discrimination in employment.
Lower court judges, in fact, soon began relying on the Bostock decision to protect transgender individuals in educational settings, such as to ensure access to bathrooms of choice and desired sports teams. In 2021, the Biden administration cited Bostock as it imposed rules protecting trans individuals from discrimination in health care.
And Biden was entirely wrong on this point. Bostock only looked at Title VII not Title IX. It did not create new protections outside of employment.
But the Bostock foundation was shaky at the Supreme Court, as the majority grew more conservative. At the same time, Republican-controlled states increasingly adopted legislation diminishing transgender rights, in education and public facilities, healthcare and athletics.
That’s because “transgender rights” in these areas, which is by and large to say male rights, directly conflict with those of female rights—particularly Title IX.
Last June, the Supreme Court turned away from Bostock when it upheld state bans on hormone treatment and other medical care for trans youths. The 6-3 majority rejected arguments that they were a form of sex discrimination and declared the bans instead tied to age and medical use.
Correct. It was a case decided on the basis of medicine. As a side note, Jackson’s dissent was particularly unhinged.
Now, in one of the most anticipated disputes of the justices’ current session, the court will hear a pair of cases on Tuesday over whether states can keep trans women from participating on female sports teams without violating federal anti-bias statues or the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the law.
The answer is “yes” because “trans women” are not women. If they were, they’d simply be called “women.”
The dispute to be heard Tuesday is likely to further show the limits of the Bostock ruling.
Yes. Bostock was limited to employment.
Defending their bans on transgender women in female sports, state officials from Idaho and West Virginia argue schools should be able to separate athletes based on their biological sex. They say it is simply unfair and unsafe to let individuals who were born male compete with females.
The states, joined by the Trump administration, contend Bostock’s principles were confined to the employment context covered by Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
That is entirely correct.