Trump administration spends its dying days desperately trying to keep trans girls from playing sports
Donald Trump and Mike Pence are clinging to Idaho’s vile anti-trans law (Win McNamee/Getty)
The final transphobic act of the dying Trump administration is a desperate plea for federal courts to maintain a ban on transgender girls competing in school sports.
On Thursday (19 November) Trump’s Department of Justice filed an amicus brief in Hecox v. Little, a lawsuit brought by cross-country runner Lindsay Hecox after Idaho passed a law banning trans women like her from competing in school and college sports as their gender.
In August an Idaho judge granted an injunction against the enforcement of the state’s discriminatory law, which allows a female student athlete’s gender to be “challenged” and requires the athlete to undergo genital exams to “prove” it.
Incredibly, the Trump administration is now attempting to argue it is actually the injunction that is discriminating on the basis of gender identity, because it gives trans women “differential treatment” over cis men.
“The district court’s injunction erroneously requires Idaho to give biological males who identify as female differential treatment over biological males who identify as males when it comes to participation on female-designated teams,” the 40-page brief insists.
“The injunction’s standard thus mandates discrimination on the basis of transgender status. The injunction also harms biological females by depriving them of equal athletic opportunities by forcing them to compete on unequal footing against biological males.”
ACLU lawyer Chase Strangio was unsurprised by the brief, which he says is entirely consistent with the Trump administration’s anti-trans policies.
“The Trump administration is coming to an end the same way it started: by attacking transgender youth,” he told the Washington Blade.
“Sweeping attacks on transgender people will ultimately fall in court and we will look back on the positions taken by the administration with great horror. The district court judge saw HB 500 was for what it is — unconstitutional discrimination against transgender student athletes and all women.
“We will continue to fight for Lindsay and other transgender athletes in Idaho.”
