Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a former chair and senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, joined Senator Mazie K. Hirono (D-HI), Congressional Equality Caucus Co-Chair Representative Becca Balint (D-VT), and Democratic Women’s Caucus Chair Representative Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM), and 129 members of Congress in filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in the cases of West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, where the Court will be considering whether categorical bans on transgender students participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity violate Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.
The brief, which argues that categorical bans on transgender students participating in school sports violate Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, was joined by seven of Senator Murray and Senator Hirono’s colleagues in the Senate, and over 120 Representatives.
“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,” wrote the lawmakers, who are referred to as Amici in the brief. “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. On top of that, such categorical bans do not meet the standards this Court has put in place to assess discrimination based on sex—whether as a matter of Title IX or under the Equal Protection Clause. 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.”
The brief highlights:
- How categorical bans harm all girls and women—including cisgender girls and women—through harassment and policing of children’s “reproductive biology;”
- How categorical bans both undermine the ability of transgender students to participate in their school community and are not substantially related to an important government interest; and
- The recent failures to amend Title IX to enact a categorical ban.
The brief includes examples of the harm posed by these bans, including where a school athletic association secretly investigated a cisgender female student without telling her parents, where a school board member falsely suggested that a high school basketball athlete was transgender—subjecting her to relentless harassment and bullying, and another example where investigators repeatedly asked individuals to describe a student in various stages of undress.
In addition to Senators Murray and Hirono, the amicus brief was joined by Senators Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Ed Markey (D-MA), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Ron Wyden (D-OR).
The full text of the amicus brief is available HERE.
Senator Murray is a strong supporter of—and fighting to pass—the Equality Act, which would expand federal civil rights laws to protect LGBTQ+ people from discrimination in employment, housing, credit, jury service, and federally-funded programs. Senator Murray is also a lead sponsor of legislation to ban conversion therapy in the United States, working to pass her Therapeutic Fraud Prevention Act. Under the Trump administration, Senator Murray repeatedly fought back against Trump’s attempts to roll back protections for LGBTQ+ Americans and stood up against judicial nominees who had troubling anti-LGBTQ+ records. Senator Murray reintroduced the Tyler Clementi Higher Education Anti-Harassment Act in September, legislation that would address bullying and harassment—including cyberbullying—at colleges and universities around the country. The legislation is named after a freshman at Rutgers University, who tragically lost his life to suicide in 2010 after his roommate and another student invaded his privacy and harassed him due to his sexual orientation.
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