Supreme Court conservatives signal support for state transgender sports bans during oral arguments

By Fox News · Fox News

The Supreme Court struggled for consensus Tuesday as they publicly debated state bans on transgender female students from competing in women's and girls' scholastic sports. Both sides repeatedly invoked contrasting versions of "fairness" and "equal opportunity" in front of the justices, during a more than three-hour marathon oral argument session in the courtroom. Idaho and West Virginia separately defended their laws that limit participation for transgender females who were designated male at birth, in both public school and college athletics. They are among almost 30 states who say their restrictions are a matter of ensuring a level playing field and student safety. HOUSE GOP LEADER BLASTS TRANS ATHLETES IN GIRLS' SPORTS AS 'BIGGEST FORM OF BULLYING' But lawyers for a high school sophomore and a college senior counter that those prohibitions are clearly discriminatory, and that the issues should be about equality and dignity for every student, free from politics and misinformation. The high court is examining whether the laws violate the Constitution's equal protection clause and the landmark federal law Title IX -- forbidding sex discrimination in education -- applies in these inclusion cases. A majority of the court -- at least five of the six conservatives -- appeared ready to back the state restrictions in some form. Only Justice Neil Gorsuch seemed open to some of the arguments by the student plaintiffs. In arguments, much of the discussion came down to whether the transgender student population was large enough to give them an opportunity to defend their rights as a protected class. With an estimated 2.8 million people in the U.S. who identify as transgender, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said their rights should be respected, even if they represent a relatively small percentage of the population. "The numbers don’t talk about the human beings," said Sotomayor. "I'm struggling to understand how you can say that this law doesn't classify on the basis of transgende…