Maureen Groppe

The law doesn't have to be fair in 100% of the cases to students to whom it would apply.

And so it seems like the majority of the court is going to allow these bans to stay into effect.

So his executive order is one reason that the Justice Department asked the Supreme Court to let it participate in the oral arguments.

And a lawyer from the Justice Department did so in both cases, arguing on behalf of Idaho's and West Virginia's bans.

One thing that the lawyer was asked about is whether his logic would extend to the Trump administration's executive order in the sense that the states are saying that they are allowed to impose these bans.

In the Justice Department's executive order, the issue is whether states are required to have these bans because the Trump administration is trying to withhold federal funding from states that do not have bans like this.

And one of the liberal justices, Justice Elena Kagan, she tried to focus on how can they do it in a way that still would allow states that don't want to have these bans to challenge the administration's executive order that would require them to have the bans.

Well, the transgender rights community got a huge win in 2020.

The Supreme Court surprised a lot of people by ruling that a civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, that applies to gay and transgender people.

But since then, the court has been ruling the other way, including as in the case I mentioned from last year about banning gender affirming care for minors.

And then in the fall, the court heard a challenge to a law in Colorado that bans what's called conversion therapy, which is an attempt to change someone's sexual orientation or their gender identity.

And it sounded like the court was going to strike down laws like that, which is not just Colorado, but a number of other states as well.

So that would be another loss for

for the LGBTQ community if that happens, and we should get a decision on that, as we will in this case, by the end of June or early July.

But there are 27 states, including Idaho and West Virginia, that bar transgender girls and women from playing on female sports teams.

The rest of the states, they either have laws prohibiting such bans or they haven't taken a position on the issue.

One of the big issues in the case was whether there is a major issue out there with transgender athletes competing on female sports teams.

The students who are challenging the ban say there are very few students who this would apply to.

And this case is problems is being made out to be bigger than it is.

The other side says that it's not just the transgender students who are affected.