In its first decision involving transgender students and sports, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected West Virginia’s request to bar a 12-year-old transgender girl from participating in the

girls girls

follow team in her high school.

With two conservatives dissenting, the court rejected an emergency appeal from state attorneys defending a 2021 law that would classify students based on how their

their biological

sex was labelled

at birth, rather than how they don’t identify their sex.

A federal appeals court had

the

put the measure on hold while it considers legal and constitutional challenges.

The court did not explain its decision, but Justices Samuel A. Alito and Clarence Thomas said they would have carried out the law.

While the court’s action does not set a precedent, it sends a signal that the judges are not ready to quickly pass laws that discriminate against transgender people.

California and 21 other mostly Democratic states prohibit discrimination against transgender students.

The law in West Virginia was similar to measures in 17 Republican-led states that focus on how a st

the sex of the udent was identified as a student’s biological sex at birth

.

If the state law were enforced, it would have banned a 12-year-old transgender girl named Becky Pepper-Jackson from competing on her high school’s cross-country and track and field teams in Bridgeport, West Virginia.

She and her mother said she knew she was a girl, not a boy, before she started school. She “has been living like a girl for years in all aspects of her life and is receiving puberty-delaying treatment and estrogen hormone therapy, so she has not experienced (and will not experience) endogenous puberty,” they told the court.

She has been an enthusiastic member of the girls’ cross-country team, even though she is not a fast runner and usually finished well in the back of the pack. Her school had welcomed her participation until the state passed the new law.

In 2021, she sued and won in a federal judge who noted that no child has been harmed or likely to be harmed by BPJ’s continued participation in her high school’s cross country and track and field teams. He issued a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of the law.

But in January, the judge reversed course and upheld the law. He said it did not violate the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the laws, nor Title IX, the education law that prohibits gender discrimination.

The ACLU appealed on her behalf, and the 4th Circuit Court reversed the judge’s decision in a 2-1 decision. The two judges in the majority did not explain their reasons.

On March 9, West Virginia Atty. General Patrick Morrisey announced that he is “bringing the fight for fairness in women’s sports all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.” He sought an emergency order from the Supreme Court to enforce the law.

In passing the Save Women’s Sports Act, West Virginia lawmakers expressed concern that transgender girls could have an unfair advantage if they could compete on girls’ teams in schools or colleges. They pointed to incidents in other states where high school girls who were sprinters, swimmers or volleyball players were reportedly “fallen behind or pushed aside by biologically male athletes,” according to the state.

Morrisey told the court that the law “just tries to accommodate physiological differences rooted in biological sex in a context where those differences matter.”

The ACLU and Lambda Legal denounced the state’s emergency call as a “petty and baseless move. These types of requests are typically reserved for important, time-sensitive cases, including pending death sentences and matters of national security.” playing is hardly an emergency.”

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta had joined lawyers from 17 other Democratic-led states in urging the court to block West Virginia’s law as unconstitutional.

“Because the sole function of West Virginia law is to exclude and stigmatize transgender girls like BPJ, it violates equal protection under any level of scrutiny,” the Democratic attorneys said in a letter from a court friend.

They said California and other states have banned discrimination against transgender athletes for a decade.

“The Los Angeles Unified School District, one of the largest school districts in the country, has had a transgender-inclusive sports policy for many years without any problems,” they told the court. “District policies have led to a positive ‘transformation’ in district schools: an experience that contrasts sharply with concerns expressed that students will abuse the policy.

The case was West Virginia vs. BPJ

The Supreme Court has not yet issued a formal ruling in a case involving transgender students. But three years ago, transgender workers were protected by the courts from workplace discrimination under federal civil rights laws.

The court’s ruling, written by Judge Neil M. Gorsuch, said the law prohibits discrimination based on sex, and discrimination against a transgender employee fits that definition.