The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to deny an emergency request from the Biden Administration to implement new Title IX guidelines aimed at providing additional rights for transgender students, including allowing biological men access to women’s facilities in states with laws against such practices.
The Biden Administration argued that Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination extends to gender identity and sexual orientation, but faced legal challenges from over two dozen Republican attorneys general.
“On this limited record and in its emergency applications, the Government has not provided this Court a sufficient basis to disturb the lower courts’ interim conclusions that the three provisions found likely to be unlawful are intertwined with and affect other provisions of the rule,” the court wrote.
The Court’s decision represents a significant setback for the Administration, emphasizing that it did not provide sufficient justification to override lower court rulings suggesting that the new provisions might be unlawful.
Additionally, a group of 102 female athletes has petitioned the Supreme Court to address state laws banning biological men from competing in women’s sports, citing concerns over fairness and the negative impact on female competitors.
“A growing number of women and girls have been facing the humiliating and damaging experience of being forced to compete against males who identify as transgender in the women’s sports category,” a court filing states.
“It is hard to express the pain, humiliation, frustration and shame women experience when they are forced to compete against males in sport. It is public shaming and suffering, an exclusion from women’s own category.”
