“We Continue to Fight”: Chase Strangio on the Supreme Court’s Ban on Trans Girls & Women in Sports

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

In another major Supreme Court decision, justices ruled states can prohibit transgender student athletes from competing in women’s and girls’ sports, upholding bans in Idaho and West Virginia. Justices ruled unanimously the state bans don’t violate Title IX, the federal law against sex discrimination in education. They split, 6 to 3, over whether the trans athlete bans are unconstitutional, with the conservative majority finding they do not run afoul of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause.

The ruling was lauded by President Trump, who said on social media, ”BIG WIN.”

Senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project Joshua Block said in a statement, quote, “This is a heartbreaking ruling … The reality is that the equality of transgender women and girls takes nothing away from, and in fact promotes, the equality of all women and girls,” unquote.

For more, we’re joined by Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. In December of 2024, Chase made history as the first openly trans attorney to present oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court. He joins us here in New York.

Welcome back to Democracy Now!, Chase. Explain these two Supreme Court rulings.

CHASE STRANGIO: Yeah, so, I think it’s important for people to understand just one big-picture point here, which is that we have before the Supreme Court this decision about trans athletes’ participation in sports, and the court is making a ruling on both Title IX, which is the federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education, and the Equal Protection Clause. And, of course, this is a precedential legal system. So, if the court is offering a constrained reading of these statutory protections and constitutional protections, it’s going to impact everyone, not just trans people. And so, I just want to start with that.

And then, on the Title IX piece of the ruling, with sports, Congress passed an additional statute called the Javits Amendment, which does give a lot more leeway when it comes to the ways in which sports can be regulated. And so, the court confined its Title IX ruling to the context of sports and, in essence, said that if we accept the premise that sex means sex assigned at birth, that this is a potentially reasonable way to manage the context of sports, which are zero sum. It’s a very narrow Title IX ruling.

On equal protection, we have the split in the court, in essence, saying that it doesn’t violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment — again, we’re dealing with the 14th Amendment before this court — to exclude categorically trans women and girls from women’s sports. And that is obviously a devastating ruling, but, again, very much cabined to the context of sports.

AMY GOODMAN: Put this into the broader context of intensifying attacks against the trans community and other decisions by the Supreme Court.

CHASE STRANGIO: Yeah, I mean, I think we have to understand the way in which sports, in particular, was being used as a way to vilify trans people, with two ultimate objectives, both from the Trump administration and from states around the country. The first is that there is an effort, that we’re seeing escalate, to push trans people out of public life, out of our schools, out of our workplaces, and sports was hopefully going to be the wedge that conservatives used for a broad legal ruling that legitimized those efforts. And also, especially from the Trump administration, we’re seeing attacks on trans people and on immigrants as part of the administration’s central goal of expanding executive power and increasing the legitimacy of the Trump administration’s authority over every aspect of our bodily autonomy and everyday life.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to turn to one of the plaintiffs in the case. This is Becky Pepper-Jackson of West Virginia speaking when she first filed her lawsuit. At the time, she was just 11 years old.

BECKY PEPPER–JACKSON: I first tried out for a school sport my sixth grade year for cross-country. Everyone in my family is runners. So it was nice to get, like, help from them. I originally wanted to try out for the long-distance team, because that’s what I had known and love from cross-country and running with my family. But my coach told me that if I were to just go for long distance, I wouldn’t have made the team, because it was much more competitive during track season. So she encouraged me to try shot put and discus, which, as it turned out, I really loved.

Being able to compete alongside my peers was really fun for me, because it taught me teamwork, I made a lot of friends, but, most of all, I just had fun. And that’s all I wanted to do. When my mom told me about the fact that I wouldn’t be able to play the sports that I love, I was devastated. I asked my mom what my options were. And they said that we could talk to the ACLU and Lambda Legal. And that’s when we filed our lawsuit with them.

AMY GOODMAN: Becky Pepper-Jackson is now a 15-year-old high school sophomore. She recently won first place in the shot put at the state high school track and field championships and came in fourth in a discus competition in May. The state governor criticized her win, writing on social media, quote, “The state track and field Championship confirms the fundamental unfairness of letting boys compete in girls’ sports,” unquote. Becky Pepper-Jackson is believed to be the only person in the entire state the ban applies to. If you can respond to who Becky is and the significance of this, and this issue of the focus on going after trans athletes? I heard Illinois Governor Pritzker yesterday saying about the Supreme Court ruling, “We have three trans athletes that this affects, of over 100,000 athletes.”

CHASE STRANGIO: Yeah, we’re talking about an incredibly small number of athletes. There is Becky in West Virginia, and there’s one athlete in Idaho. So that’s two people. And again, Becky was 11 years old when she filed her lawsuit. She transitioned before she ever went through puberty. In 2021, when that lawsuit was filed, the rhetoric was very much about this so-called unfairness was about going through an endogenous, typical male puberty. Well, guess what: Becky never went through that puberty. Becky has all the typical characteristics of someone assigned female at birth. And she was terrible at running. She could not make the team and was told, “You should become a thrower.” She works hard every single day. And here she is, being demonized just for trying to participate with her friends.

AMY GOODMAN: And as we wrap up, can you talk about the other athlete, Lindsay Hickox in Idaho?

CHASE STRANGIO: Lindsay Hickox also — she wanted to play on a club intramural team in college. We’re talking about the least competitive context you could imagine, and she just wanted to be a part of her collegiate experience. Both Becky and Lindsay just wanted to be part of teams, and here we are, demonizing them, when we have serious problems in this country.

AMY GOODMAN: So, where do you go from here, Chase, with your work?

CHASE STRANGIO: We continue — we continue to fight. Look, these are devastating rulings from the Supreme Court, both this term and last term, and yet, in the lower courts, we’re still achieving important victories that are delaying some of the most egregious harms from the Trump administration’s attack on trans people. So, in and out of the courtroom, we keep fighting.

But we need people to understand that their freedom is bound up in ours. These rulings will affect them, too. And so, if we aren’t mobilizing together, then we’re going to get these constrained interpretations of our civil rights protections, and ultimately that’s going to serve the Trump administration’s objectives to ultimately make all of our lives more constrained and less free.

AMY GOODMAN: Chase Strangio, co-director of the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project. In December of 2024, Chase made history by becoming the first openly trans attorney to present oral arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court for United States v. Skrmetti.