JUSTICES UNLIKELY TO BACK TRANS ATHLETES

Ruling on girls' sports may not directly affect California and other liberal-leaning states.

- DAVID G. SAVAGE AND HOWARD BLUME

A PROTEST on Tuesday at the Supreme Court. It seemed ready to rule against trans athletes in girls' sports.

KENT NISHIMURA Bloomberg

The Supreme Court sounded ready Tuesday to uphold conservative state laws that forbid transgender athletes to compete on school sports teams for girls.

But the ruling may not directly affect California and other liberal-leaning states, at least for now.

Idaho, West Virginia and 25 other Republican-led states say a student’s biological sex at birth should determine who can play on the girls’ or boys’ teams. They say it is unfair to girls to permit biological males to compete against them in sports such as track and field or swimming.

"Biological males are, on average, bigger, stronger and faster than biological females," West Virginia's state lawyers said.

Trans rights advocates sued and won rulings that these laws discriminate under the Constitution and violate Title IX, the 1972 education law credited with bolstering sports for girls and women nationwide.

During three hours of argument, the court’s conservative majority sounded ready to reverse these decisions and to uphold the state laws — but in a limited way.

Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, a sports enthusiast who coaches girls’ basketball, said he favored a step-by-step approach.

"Given that half the states are allowing transgender girls and women to participate, about half are not, why would we at this point just jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country?" he asked.

If so, a ruling in favor of West Virginia and Idaho will not directly change the law in California and the more than a dozen other Democrat-led states that forbid discrimination based on gender identity.