Two amicus briefs: one rational, one wide-eyed crazy

The Supreme Court is now hearing two cases—State of West Virginia v BPJ and Little v Hecox—that will have wide-ranging impact on how states interpret Title IX, and the future of girls’ and women’s sports. Two groups have filed amicus briefs with the Supreme Court: One side is pressing for rational, science-backed, not-hair-on-fire understanding of sex, male and female, opportunities for women, a return to the intent of Title IX. And on the other side, people are shrieking about genital inspections. Let’s have a look at both.

In September, a group of Republican Congresspeople and Senators submitted an amicus brief supporting state laws in West Virginia and Idaho that keep men from playing in women’s sports. In other words, they’re urging the Supreme Court to uphold Title IX. They argue that federal laws like Title IX can only be made by Congress, and their meaning should not be changed by the courts:

The Members’ interest is magnified here because the stakes are so high. If allowed to stand, the interpretation of the lower courts will unsettle the very promises that Congress made to generations of young women and men through Title IX. Departing from the statute’s plain text risks transforming a law designed to secure equal educational opportunities on the basis of sex into one that undermines those very protections. Title IX’s guarantee of fairness in athletics, privacy in facilities, and equal treatment in education rests on the stable and easily understood meaning of “sex.” If courts redefine that term judicially, the carefully crafted safeguards of Title IX will be eroded, and the statute’s core purpose — to prevent sex-based discrimination — will be turned on its head.

No made-up language (cis, transgender), no language that cannot be defined (gender identity), this letter doesn’t have to rely on word salad or jargon or breathlessly ginned up outrage; it uses everyday language to support the very rational, common sense notion of sex-separated sports to provide girls and women more opportunities in sports. The authors of Title IX understood sex differences, knowledge that has since gone missing. These friends of the court are urging a return to that reality. Their conclusion is one sentence:

Title IX says what it means and means what it says: it prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex — not on the basis of gender identity.

In sharp contrast, a group of 130 Democrats and others who have redefined woman to include man filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court arguing that “categorical bans on transgender students participating in school sports violate Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.” This group’s argument hinges on those two words—categorical ban—inferring that if males, and they are talking about males, who declare a feminine identity are not allowed to participate in female sports, it’s tantamount to banning them entirely from sports. And friendships. And in fact, their entire school community. They are arguing that Title IX somehow grants these very special males the right to girls’ sports and spaces. Throughout this car crash, the signatories refuse to even consider that these males could compete on boys’ teams, even though many girls with trans and nonbinary identities participate without incident in their sex category.

Setting forth on their journey with that initial lie, all the succeeding verbiage would be both irrelevant and laughably fictitious had so many well educated people not convinced themselves they are too smart to fall for a con this stupid. We are in post-truth times though, so, as I like to say, this septic tank isn’t going to drain itself. Let’s dive in.

The protect-boys’-rights brief continues:

Amici have an interest in protecting the privacy, safety, health, and rights of the American people, including students who are transgender and cisgender. Categorical bans—such as the bans in West Virginia and Idaho—undermine those protections and the ability of transgender students to be part of their school community.

The authors, by using invented terms like transgender and cisgender, make it seem as if “transgender” students are some sort of third sex, a victimized minority that somehow doesn’t have the rights of males and females. They do, of course, because they are either male or female. I feel a certain gripping idiocy just writing that. Seventy-nine percent of the American people these signatories speak of support the bans this group is railing about because, over the years, Americans have educated themselves, and know that when overheated trans activists talk about “trans students” being banned, they’re really saying males are being kept out of female sports. Which makes complete sense. For the 4,637,208th time, students with trans identities are not nor ever have been prohibited from playing sports or being a part of their school community. Kids with trans identities need to compete in sports in their sex category, to protect all kids’ privacy, safety, health and rights. But, robotics? Kids with trans identities are welcome. Debate? Definitely. Theatre? For sure. Run for class president? Do it.

The amici have not listed one single thing males with feminine identities are prohibited from doing, except taking away girls’ rights, which is what they really are jonesing for. Best cover that up with word salad. See below:

Amici have differing views on what, if any, regulations are appropriate to govern participation in single sex teams and programs. But Amici believe that categorical bans preventing transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity impose significant harm on all children—especially girls.

This whole paragraph is a contradictory mishmash: One wonders what those proposed differing regulations on single-sex teams might be—girls can have their own sports unless a boy really really wants to join? And how are all children, especially girls—what definition of girl are they using here—harmed by single-sex sports? I was a class of 1976 Title IX girl who benefited from single-sex sports, and so were my daughters. Not only do I not recall harm from this situation, I also don’t recall boys declaring themselves girls and being ushered into my sports and locker rooms. Why do they claim girls are especially harmed, but not boys? No examples given. On the other hand, it’s been lavishly proven that girls, females, are harmed—their safety, privacy, fairness, opportunity, sex-based rights—when they do not have single-sex sports.

This Court should not permit states to legalize sex discrimination against children who merely want to play sports with their friends on teams matching their gender identity.

Every right women have—to sports, locker rooms, bathrooms, prisons, rape crisis centers, hospital wards—is based on sex discrimination. By designating these sports and services on the basis of sex, males are necessarily excluded. Males have their own sports and spaces. We discriminate in sports all the time—based on age, weight, ability, and yes, sex. Allowing boys to “merely”—as if girls’ sex-based rights were trivial—play in whatever category they choose gives them more rights than any other population. The amici are deeply confused about rights versus demands—it has NEVER been a right for a male to access female sports and spaces. Pro tip: If the goal—competing in girls’ sports, for example—can’t be accomplished without trashing the rights of another demographic, then that’s not a right; it’s a demand.

Warming to their favorite topic—children’s genitals—the slavering letter writers breathlessly report:

Categorical bans harm all girls and women through harassment and policing of children’s “reproductive biology.” Concerns with categorical bans are not just a parade of horribles—they reflect an unfortunate trend well underway.

As confused as they are about sex and gender, the letter writers know exactly which sex are supposedly being subjected to invasive, humiliating genital investigations by adults, complete with feverish detail that makes you wonder about their hard drive. Why would they not give a flying whatev about all the incidents of girls invading boys’ sports and locker rooms? Oh wait… Why, in the same sentence, do they switch from “girls and women” to “children,” both sexes? How can bans be a parade of horribles? What is a parade of horribles? Whatever it is, it’s bad, and it’s happening, a lot.

The friends relied heavily on a 2022 story published in the Guardian that adult sports officials had “investigated” the genitals of some high school female athletes accused of “being transgender.” The friends reported this incident in their letter using slightly different language than the Guardian did: “The same association had investigated other complaints received because ‘an athlete doesn’t look feminine enough’ and none of those allegations that the students were transgender were verified to be true.” Meaning girls were falsely accused of being male. Compare that with what the Guardian actually wrote: “None of the complaints have been verified.” Meaning it could not be verified that these stories about girls being accused of being male had even happened. You know, when girl can also mean boy…let’s just say, this identified as proof that a parade of horribles is well underway.

In all of the creepy description of adults peering in kindergartners’ Fruit of the Looms, the amici failed address the root cause of this sudden “trend” of policing—namely that questions are being raised because boys are indeed allowed in girls’ sports. It is entirely possible that someone who looks like a boy on the girls’ podium is a boy. On planet Earth, many girls and other humans don’t believe the insane lie that a boy is a girl if he says so, and instituting this lie does not make it true. It has merely introduced instability and lack of trust in sports officials. If girls’ sports include only females, all females, bound together by the reality of sex, there’s no questions, no policing, trust is restored.

In seeking to show how ALL girls are harmed by single-sex sports, oddly, the friends talked to A BOY, Rebekah. They did not ask ANY girls, females, how they are harmed by single-sex sports. Rebekah explained “the tremendous benefits she received from participating in youth sports.” Notice, youth sports. Even this group of folx who play fast and loose with facts know that Rebekah can gain those tremendous benefits from participating in male or coed sports, without taking away girls’ rights.

From Rebekah’s story, the friends of boys come to this head-scratching conclusion:

Everyone wants sports to be fair, but categorical bans are not tailored to achieve that end. In fact, they promote unfairness by precluding students from obtaining the benefits of youth sports on the basis of sex.

Here, they start to address the obvious unfairness of allowing males in female sports BUT quickly pivot and say that single-sex sport is actually unfair because males with feminine identities cannot possibly get those sports benefits unless they compete in the female category. So single-sex sports are actually unfair. See?

By no means tired of repeating the lie that what is at issue here is that not allowing males to participate in female sports amounts to a total ban from not only sports but their entire school community, the amici move on to their third and final floridly worded point:

The recent failures to amend Title IX show the weaknesses in Petitioners’ strained interpretations.

It seems an outrageously ill-advised move to bring up “failures to amend Title IX” in light of their very own widely reported, humiliating failure to overwrite sex with gender identity in Tennessee v Cardona, but that has not stopped this group before. Admitting that the whole “on the basis of sex” part is pretty simple, they nonetheless fossicked around in the legal weeds and found a bunch of sentences that they thought gave the appearance of an exception. Again, it’s based on “categorical ban”—that if kids with trans identities, and of course they’re talking about males, are not allowed to participate in girls’ sports, this amounts to complete prohibition. Yes, it is, to borrow some fancy legalese, nuts.

When you don’t have an argument, you bury your long-suffering audience in verbiage. Done and done. I started out reading this thing looking like Angelina Jolie and arrived at the conclusion, below, looking like the HMS Rachel Levine.

The categorical bans at issue here discriminate on the basis of sex and do so without being substantially related to an important government interest. Because of that, Amici respectfully submit that the Court should rule in favor of Hecox and B.P.J.

One more chance to reiterate the lie that kids with trans identities (males) are completely banned from all sports, and then adding, irrespective of any other argument they’ve put forth in the preceding eleven pages, that this whole thing—girls’ and women’s rights as a distinct sex class of humans—is not really a big deal anyway. In the scope of things.

It will come as no surprise that I identify as a Supreme Court Justice and cannot enjoy the benefits of said office unless I can strike insultingly stupid amicus briefs from the record, and declare from the dias that men are not women, and women have rights based on their biology. Is that too much to ask?