Maureen Groppe

But she stopped participating in sports this year, which is her senior year, and she wanted to dismiss her challenge to give the other side a win, saying, I'm not challenging your law anymore as it applies to me.

I'm not going to play sports anymore.

I'm never going to play sports and try to challenge this law again.

And she did so because she told the Supreme Court that she's afraid continuing with her case will subject her to harassment and that'll make it harder for graduating.

And that's what she wants to focus on right now.

And she also said that there's increased intolerance for transgender women who participate in sports.

She made that argument to the court in the fall.

Idaho opposed her petition, even though that would have given them a win.

It would have given them a win without a decision from the Supreme Court saying, yeah, you're right on your legal arguments.

And that's the way they want to win this case.

So they said she shouldn't be able to withdraw at this late stage in the game.

And the court said they were going to wait until after the oral arguments to decide whether or not her case can continue.

So the court has a 6-3 conservative majority.

There are six justices who are appointed by Republicans and three by Democrats.

They were sympathetic to the students' arguments that these laws are categorical bans, and so people like these two students shouldn't get their chance in court to argue for why the laws shouldn't apply to their particular case and look at the evidence about whether or not they retain any physical advantages after going through medical treatments.

But the six conservatives, a majority of them seemed not persuaded by that argument.

They seemed more sympathetic to the argument from the states that, look, these laws are meant to protect women in sports.

And the way they do so by saying that you can't participate legally,

On a female sports team, if you were designated male at birth, that rule is going to make sense in 99% of the cases.

And so that's good enough.