Alito, J., dissenting
School Dist., 897 F. 3d 518, 533 (CA3 2018), cert. denied, 587 U. S. ___ (2019).
Women’s sports. Another issue that may come up under both Title VII and Title IX is the right of a transgender individual to participate on a sports team or in an athletic competition previously reserved for members of one biological sex.[1] This issue has already arisen under Title IX, where it threatens to undermine one of that law’s major achievements, giving young women an equal opportunity to participate in sports. The effect of the Court’s reasoning may be to force young women to compete against students who have a very significant biological advantage, including students who have the size and strength of a male but identify as female and students who are taking male hormones in order to transition from female to male. See, e.g., Complaint in Soule v. Connecticut Assn. of Schools, No. 3:20–cv–00201 (D Conn., Apr. 17, 2020) (challenging Connecticut policy allowing transgender students to compete in girls’ high school sports); Complaint in Hecox v. Little, No. 1:20–cv–00184 (D Idaho, Apr. 15, 2020) (challenging state law that bars transgender students from participating in school sports in accordance with gender identity). Students in these latter categories have found success in athletic competitions reserved for females.[2]
- ↑ A regulation allows single-sex teams, 34 CFR §106.41(b) (2019), but the statute itself would of course take precedence.
- ↑ “[S]ince 2017, two biological males [in Connecticut] have collectively won 15 women’s state championship titles (previously held by ten different Connecticut girls) against biologically female track athletes.” Brief for Independent Women’s Forum et al. as Amici Curiae in No. 18–107,
pp. 14–15.
At the college level, a transgendered woman (biological male) switched from competing on the men’s Division II track team to the women’s Division II track team at Franklin Pierce University in New Hampshire after taking a year of testosterone suppressants. While this student had placed “eighth out of nine male athletes in the 400 meter hurdles the
