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Supreme Court Temporarily Blocks West Virginia Transgender Athlete Law

On Thursday, the United States Supreme Court declined to reinstate a law in West Virginia dealing with so-called “transgender” athletes that had been blocked by a lower court.

According to ABC News, the case involves a 12-year-old boy, who believes he is a girl, and his parents, who sued the state to allow the boy to continue participating in his school’s female cross-country and track teams. However, the injunction issued by the Supreme Court is only temporary, as West Virginia asked to have the law reinstated while the legal battle is still ongoing; it was thus not a ruling by the high court on the merits of the law itself.

The Supreme Court did not give any official explanation for its decision, but two of the court’s most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, issued a dissent in which they argued that the court should have at least given a reason.

“Among other things, enforcement of the law at issue should not be forbidden by the federal courts without any explanation,” wrote Justice Alito.

In its defense of the law in lower courts, the state of West Virginia pointed out that “there is a substantial risk that boys would dominate the girls’ programs and deny them an equal opportunity to compete in interscholastic events.”

The law was challenged by the far-left American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the family of the boy, who goes by the name Becky Pepper Jackson.

“We are grateful that the Supreme Court today acknowledged that there was no emergency and that Becky should be allowed to continue to participate with her teammates on her middle school track team, which she has been doing without incident for three going on four seasons, as our challenge to West Virginia’s onerous trans youth sports ban makes its way through the courts,” the ACLU said in a statement, incorrectly using female pronouns to refer to the boy. “This was a baseless and cruel effort to keep Becky from where she belongs – playing alongside her peers as a teammate and as a friend.”

Multiple other states have passed similar laws blocking athletes from participating in the wrong gender’s sports, as well as laws to block the performance of sex-change surgeries and cross-sex hormone therapies for minors. The backlash against “transgenderism” – the false and scientifically-debunked notion that there are more than two genders, and that anyone can change their gender at any time – has increased significantly over the last several years. Further backlash has arisen after a transgender domestic terrorist carried out a mass shooting at a Christian school in Nashville last week.

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About Eric Lendrum

Eric Lendrum graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he was the Secretary of the College Republicans and the founding chairman of the school’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter. He has interned for Young America’s Foundation, the Heritage Foundation, and the White House, and has worked for numerous campaigns including the 2018 re-election of Congressman Devin Nunes (CA-22). He is currently a co-host of The Right Take podcast.