Biden administration tells court that states can’t ban trans girls from sports

President of the United States Joe Biden
Photo: Wikimedia Commons

In the strongest move yet this year from the Biden administration in support of transgender students’ rights, the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Education (DOE) have filed a joint brief in support of a transgender girl who is suing her state for the right to participate in school sports.

The DOJ and DOE told the federal court that it is illegal under both Title IX and the Constitution for states to ban transgender girls from sports and asked the court to overturn the state law in a brief signed by many of the top lawyers in both Biden administration departments.

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Eleven-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson’s family is suing the state of West Virginia after she was told that she couldn’t join the girls’ cross-country team in middle school because she’s transgender.

The ACLU, which is helping with the case, claims in the suit that state lawmakers relied on “unfounded stereotypes, false scientific claims, and baseless fear and misunderstanding of girls who are transgender” when passing a ban on trans girls in sports earlier this year, citing ignorant statements made during the legislature’s debate on the issue.

Now the Biden administration has filed a brief in support of Pepper-Jackson’s lawsuit.

“The United States has a significant interest in ensuring that all students, including students who are transgender, can participate in an educational environment free of unlawful discrimination and that the proper legal standards are applied to claims under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause,” the brief, which is signed by several top lawyers at both departments, says.

Title IX bans discrimination “on the basis of sex” in schools that receive federal money, and both President Joe Biden and the DOE have said that that bans anti-LGBTQ discrimination since it’s impossible to discriminate against LGBTQ people without taking sex into account.

Here, West Virginia’s law only bans…

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