Not So Fast

People think that the United States v. Skrmetti case banned trans healthcare nationwide... but it only upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors. It had nothing to do with Connecticut at all. So when I see this article... they are blowing smoke!

High court’s trans ruling leaves state case open

Litigation on whether states can permit biological males in women’s sports to resume

By Edmund H. Mahony

Hartford Courant

July 12, 2026

When the U.S. Supreme Court concluded that states can bar biological males from competing in women’s sports, it left unanswered the other side of the question: Can states

permit it?

The question is pointed directly at Connecticut or, more particularly, at a case referred to as Soule that has percolated in Connecticut’s federal district court for six years. The Supreme Court acknowledged as much in the first footnote in its late June decision.

The cases on which it based its opinion, the court said in the footnote, “do not present the distinct question of whether (under federal law) schools may allow biological males who identify as female to participate on girls’ and women’s sports teams.”

“That question is currently the subject of litigation in some lower courts,” the court said.“Nothing in this opinion is intended to decide that question.”

Selina Soule is one of four female high school track athletes who sued the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference and four local school boards in 2020 to reverse policies that allow biological males who identify as female to compete in women’s high school sports. It is the mirror image of the question raised in the two cases on which the high court ruled on June 30 — cases referred to as B.P.J from West Virginia and Hecox from Idaho.

So, contrary to what many have heard, United States v. Skrmetti has not banned healthcare nor sports for us here in CT. And from what I remember of the Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools case, it was initially dismissed because the court found there were no injuries to the students. They still received scholarships to the colleges of their choice. (By "injuries," the court meant legal injuries—like being denied college admission or a scholarship—not physical injuries.)

The four women bringing the suit, who competed at a high level in high school sports when the suit was filed, claim that two biological men who identify as woman repeatedly outperformed them in championship level events that might have created scholarship opportunities.

Because they got into their schools and received scholarships anyway, the transgender student-athletes didn't legally harm them.  You have to realize where the Republicans are coming from... the 1950s! Back then, they thought people chose to be LGBTQ+. They still believe that chromosomes alone determine gender. They completely ignore conditions like Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome (AIS), Swyer syndrome, or mutations in the SRY gene. But now, we know there are complex medical and biological factors involved in being trans.

So, if the Supreme Court says it is a matter of states' rights when it comes to banning trans healthcare, then that state-level autonomy should also hold true for schools and trans students in sports here in Connecticut.