By Ann Rostow—
Play Ball, Or Not
As the Supreme Court wound down its 2025/2026 session, the justices released the court’s decision in the combined cases that asked whether states can ban transgender women and girls from playing sports for public schools and colleges. Surprise! The answer was of course they can. Justice Kavanaugh wrote the opinion for the six conservatives on the court, while Justice Sotomayor wrote a partial concurrence and a dissent for the three liberal members. Justices Thomas and Gorsuch wrote separately to concur with the majority, while Justice Jackson also wrote a concurrence and a dissent of her own.
There were two legal arguments raised by the plaintiffs in Idaho and West Virginia. Both plaintiffs argued that the law against trans sports participation violated the Equal Protection Act, while the West Virginia plaintiff also claimed the law ran afoul of Title IX’s ban on sex discrimination in federally funded schools. Even the liberals agreed that the anti-trans laws were allowed under Title IX, which basically requires equal treatment of men and women in sports and other aspects of education. But Sotomayor and the rest of our gang strongly disagreed with the casual dismissal of Equal Protection claims.
Let’s back up and remind ourselves that transgender rights issues are much more complicated than the comparatively simple fight for gay and lesbian equality. In terms of sports, I used to think that transgender girls who had undergone hormone treatments and reduced their testosterone levels to female norms should be eligible to play, period. Indeed, the NCAA and Olympic committees used to require a couple of years of such treatments before trans-women could compete. Now, however, trans-women are banned across the board by both groups, in part perhaps thanks to Trump’s birth sex executive order—his attempt to erase transgender men and women with a stroke of his pen.
But there’s another underlying question, and that’s whether transgender girls have a permanent advantage by virtue of going through male puberty or even simply due to their early years as males. Sotomayor’s main point was that this uncertainty was something that must be resolved, or at least studied, as a threshold question before claims of Equal Protection could be properly evaluated. The majority, by contrast, announced that the courts were not in the business of making scientific judgments and that, ergo, legislatures were free to come up with their own policies as long as the science was in dispute. Effectively, this decided the issue in favor of the idea that trans-girls can never be free of the (presumed) advantage of being born male.
No one thinks an untreated trans-girl can or should compete in high level sports against other women. And most people, I’m guessing, would agree that trans-girls should be able to play recreational sports for fun. The idea that cisgender girls would be put in danger by a transgender playmate is absurd and seems to be based on the stereotyped assumption that cisgender girls are dainty flowers while transgender girls are brutal bullies. But the Court’s opinion made no distinction between levels of sports, instead writing that every trans-girl who wins a spot on a team takes one away from a deserving cis player—this despite the fact that many female teams have fluid rosters, particularly track teams, and, as we just said, many school sports programs are designed for exercise and fellowship.
A dilemma arises when it comes to championship athletics, mainly college but also some high-level high school sports. Sotomayor notes that evaluating players on a case-by-case basis, as has been the rule in the past, is hardly an onerous task given how few transgender women are actually found in the elite categories. Kavanaugh, in turn, seemed to think that such individual treatment would lead to chaos—if I may paraphrase—and that a blanket ban makes more sense under the circumstances.
Note that the opinion does not say that transgender bans are required. We still have 23 states that do not ban transgender girls from the arena, so we’ll see what happens to them. And, importantly, we still can’t assess which trans-girls might have a real advantage that would make their participation problematic.
Meanwhile, there are numerous differences in cisgender women that relate to sex and/or genetics, yet with few exceptions they are not examined and categorized nor should they be. Just as the bathroom bans are catching masculine looking cis-women in their wide nets, so these strict regulations on what standards to apply to female athletes can start to impact cisgender women as well. If they don’t pass the eye test, they may be subjected to tests or inspections that represent massive invasions of privacy.
Talk about chaos.
The C Spots
My esteemed cousin has sent me a few news items, including an article about a woman who arranged an elaborate celebration for the arrival of her son’s first tooth. Really? I know it’s not a gay thing, but my cousin and I have wide interests and make a point of drilling down on important issues that might otherwise fly below the news radar. The commentators seemed split between those who thought big parties were inherently fun regardless of the occasion, and those who thought “Instagram moms” were out of control. I suppose I could go either way, depending on the personality of the mother. Was the party all about her and her image, or was it a boozy extravagance using “Jacob’s First Tooth” as a random theme? I’d go to the second event.
She also sent me a clip about a man who chopped off his penis in public and stabbed himself to death as well. Thanks for that, Dear Cousin. We need not visit the details here.
More importantly, both items came from the renowned investigative reporters at The New York Post. While reading, I found a link to a story that says scientists have only now managed to map the clitoral region in women, several decades after doing the same for the penis and its environs. Read this:
“For nearly three decades, researchers have had a detailed understanding of the nerve network that makes up the penis. But when it came to the organ responsible for female pleasure, they were largely flying blind. Now, a groundbreaking study has finally charted out those elusive sensory pathways, a breakthrough that experts say could have far-reaching implications, including helping surgeons preserve sexual function in women undergoing pelvic operations.”
What? I guess I always assumed that doctors, scientists, and researchers had long since taken a professional look at the inner workings of genitalia in both men and women. For God’s sake! What about cancer research? Sexual issues? This is the 21st Century.
The report said that Dutch researchers “used high-energy X-ray imaging to create detailed 3D scans of the pelvic regions of two deceased women who donated their bodies to science.” They learned that the clitoris extends beyond the diminutive lump we all know and love into an internal network of several branches. I knew that, which means this can’t be a new discovery, right? I wonder what those women thought would happen after they donated their bodies to science?
Here Come the Judges
Sliding back into legal news, Judge Ana Reyes, who is in charge of one of the two big lawsuits filed by transgender service members, granted class action status to the plaintiffs in her case, Talbott v USA. The details of the class were not available, but it will not include those who merely hope to join the military in the future. Judge Reyes set a trial date for next January, but also chastised the transgender plaintiffs for slow walking discovery. The other case, Shilling v USA, is taking place in Washington state while Talbott is based in Washington, D.C.
And do you remember the complicated efforts by the Justice Department to get their hands on the personal medical records of transgender hospital patients? U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Failla recently issued a temporary restraining order against the Department that applies to all transgender patients in New York City, and there was a preliminary injunction on July 8.
According to a post by Chris Geidner in his LawDork substack report, Failla said the government’s request “‘shocks the conscience’ by seeking the ‘most personal and sensitive information a medical provider could hold’ without providing “any legitimate government interest“ that would justify the level of disclosure being sought by the government.”
I’m sure there are other legal news stories, (like the First Circuit’s ruling against a Christian school in Maine that I haven’t read), but let’s save some of them to enjoy in our next issue.
Graham Cracker
I was about to issue a mea culpa regarding my past support for Graham Platner. I blew off his Nazi tattoo, because he got rid of it and said he wasn’t aware of the symbol’s history. I overlooked the sexting story because his wife said it was back in the day and they’ve moved past it. Plus, he’s been open about the emotional struggles he experienced when he returned from combat, so I chalked these and other red flags up to his PTSD. He appeared to be a forceful progressive voice and a charismatic campaigner who could send Maine into the Democratic column.
Um, I guess not. The guy’s a mess, a brute and maybe a narcissist. He finally withdrew from the Maine Senate race and I pray the Democratic Party picks a winner to replace him. Meanwhile, Michigan’s a worrisome toss-up and I’m not sure which primary candidate has a better chance in the general election. I just hope the loser (in August) rallies around the victor and unifies the ticket going forward.
I was thinking about, let’s say, toxic masculinity if you’ll excuse the trite expression, when I found a story from National Geographic about how female dolphins will avoid males who coerce females into sex. I guess there are some Platners in the dolphin world and females can recognize them as individuals and steer clear. They also tend to avoid males in groups, who have been known to surround a female and basically gang rape her until she gets free. There are also nice guy dolphins who pet and nuzzle, and these are often given preference.
Much as it pleases us to read about gay penguins and remind ourselves that our sexual orientation is part of nature’s plan, it’s disturbing to read about sexually abusive dolphins and chimps. Guys! Is this all about trying to reproduce? I have too many kind, generous, and thoughtful men in my life to believe that this type of aggression is an inherent characteristic of maleness. But it seems true for some males in every species. I’m just glad to see the females have come up with some defensive tactics. I know Flipper would never have behaved in this manner, but I see here on Google that Flipper was mainly played by two dolphins named “Kathy” and “Susie.” Voila.
It Doesn’t Really Matter
Finally, in a recent opinion piece in The New York Times, gay religious thinker Matthew Vines made the case that the GLBT movement did itself no favors when it moved from assimilation to activism. His piece, headlined “I’m Gay, Not Queer, It Matters,” suggests that the gay rights movement based its success on the idea that sexual orientation is not a choice. Since the success of marriage equality, he writes, “queer” activism has supplanted the winning strategies of yesteryear and turned us towards confrontation and a sense of victimhood.
I mention this in closing because the op-ed drew a lot of attention, and, like many others, I found it annoying. Back in the day, being gay was a perversion, so presenting sexual orientation as an innate characteristic was not just true, but a helpful way to win hearts and minds. Decades have passed. Queer, transgender, asexual, whatever—these categories have evolved as people have been able to come out of the closet at a young age and as society has seen the fluidity of sexual orientation and gender. We are now experiencing a conservative backlash, but presumably we will resume our forward march in time, perhaps with new vocabulary that will irritate people who like the word “queer.” Meanwhile, we can do without this kind of simplistic analysis and everyone is, and always has been, free to use whatever term suits them.
GLBT Fortnight in Review
Published on July 16, 2026
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