SCOTUS BlogBy Amy HoweSep 19, 2025The Trump administration came to the Supreme Court on Friday morning, asking the justices to temporarily pause a ruling by a federal judge in Massachusetts that would require the State Department to provide transgender and nonbinary people with passports reflecting the sex designation of their choosing. The order by U.S. District Judge Julia Kobick, U.S. Solicitor General D. John Sauer told the justices, “injures the United States by compelling it to speak to foreign governments in contravention of both the President’s foreign policy and scientific reality.”Under a policy implemented during the Biden administration, passport applicants could select their own markers for their sex, which allowed transgender people to obtain passports that reflected their gender identity. The Biden administration also added a third gender marker – “X” – for nonbinary applicants.[...]After the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit declined to put Kobick’s order on hold while the government appeals, the Trump administration came to the Supreme Court, asking the justices to block Kobick’s June order. Calling the passport policy “eminently lawful,” Sauer pointed to the Supreme Court’s recent decision in United States v. Skrmetti, in which the justices – by a vote of 6-3 – upheld Tennessee’s ban on certain forms of medical treatments for transgender minors. Skrmetti made clear, Sauer wrote, that “a policy does not discriminate based on sex if it applies equally to each sex without treating any member of one sex worse than a similarly situated member of the other. And here,” he said, “the challenged policy applies equally, regardless of sex—defining sex for everyone in terms of biology rather than self-identification.”
My guess is that this will go to the shadow docket and slipped in somehow without any court hearing.
How one West Virginia teenager could shape the future of Title IX and civil rights protections for transgender youth.ACLUBy Gillian BranstetterSeptember 29, 2025Over the last five years, politicians across the country have targeted transgender people and our families. They’ve banned our health care, censored our speech, and made schools less safe for transgender students. One of the most consistent focus areas for many of these politicians has been the rights of transgender student athletes, specifically the right of transgender girls, to play with other girls. While the overall number of transgender athletes is extremely small–most states have fewer than a handful of transgender students playing sports among 10s of thousands of student athletes– politicians have introduced hundreds of bills over the last few years targeting their ability to play.Now, the Supreme Court will hear our challenge against a state law that categorically bans transgender students from girl’s teams. Politicians hope to use the case to legitimize a broad range of discrimination against transgender people (and all LGBTQ people), excluding us not just from sports teams but from civil rights protections and pushing us further out of public life altogether.[...]There is no comprehensive count of transgender student athletes in K-12, collegiate, or professional sports in the United States, but what we do know is that they represent a tiny fraction of athletes overall. The president of the NCAA even recently told Congress, “less than 10” (and not all of them transgender women) of the more than 500,000 college athletes in the country are openly transgender.Nonetheless, they have become the focus of a relentless media campaign designed to make their participation seem like a threat to girls who are not transgender. The goal of this campaign is not only dividing us against one another, it’s to secure a sweeping legal precedent that endangers transgender people (and other people, including gay, lesbian and bisexual people, and all women) across our lives, not just in sports.
This whole Republican flap... for 10 trans athletes? At we got a hold on South Carolina's bathroom law.
CBS NewsBy Melissa QuinnSeptember 10, 2025The Supreme Court on Wednesday gave the green light for a transgender boy to continue using the restroom at his South Carolina school that corresponds with his gender identity while his legal challenge to a state ban continues.The court declined a request from South Carolina officials to freeze a federal appeals court decision that blocked enforcement of its policy on transgender students' restroom use solely against the ninth-grader, identified in court papers as John Doe. The state conditions funding on a school's compliance with a rule prohibiting transgender students from using the facilities that align with their gender identity.In an unsigned order, the court said its denial is "not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation. Rather, it is based on the standards applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court." Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch said they would have granted South Carolina's request."Today's decision from the Supreme Court reaffirms what we all know to be true: Contrary to South Carolina's insistence, trans students are not emergencies. They are not threats. They are young people looking to learn and grow at school, despite the state-mandated hostility they too often face," Alexandra Brodsky, litigation director for Public Justice's Students' Civil Rights Project, which is representing the student, said in a statement. "We are so thrilled that our client will continue to be able to use boys' restrooms while his appeal continues, and hope today's decision will provide hope to other trans students and their families during these difficult times."
"Your rights are only as strong as your ability to defend them in court."
No comments:
Post a Comment