The Supreme Court’s decision upholding bans on transgender athletes in girls' and women’s sports likely protects a Kansas law from future legal challenges.
The decision directly affects Idaho and West Virginia and indirectly in 25 other states — including Kansas — that currently have similar laws on the books for transgender athletes. Kansas bans transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports in public schools and colleges.
This impacts transgender Kansans by setting a nationwide legal precedent that is expected to make it more difficult to challenge similar laws already in effect.
After the ruling, Republican Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach said this decision confirmed what his office had argued.
“It hurts female athletes if biological males are allowed to compete in the same events,” Kobach said. “It’s also against the law.”
He also called the ruling a common sense decision.
The barrage of laws has transgender Kansan Adam Kellogg wondering one thing.
“Where does it end?” Kellogg said. “It terrifies me.”
Kellogg said laws targeting transgender people continue to push them out of the public eye.
With the Supreme Court decision and the current Kansas laws, transgender Kansans must conform to their sex assigned at birth to participate in sports, go to a bathroom in government buildings and drive.
Kobach announced earlier this month that the state's legal challenge to the Biden administration's Title IX rule ended in victory after courts blocked and ultimately invalidated the rule.
Legislators passed a law earlier this year that requires transgender people to use bathrooms in government-owned buildings based on their sex assigned at birth.
The law — currently being challenged in court — also requires state-issued driver's licenses and birth certificates to list that same sex rather than gender identity.
Despite those policies, Kellogg hopes for a brighter future for transgender Kansans.
“Hopefully soon,” he said. “And it ends with us standing together.”
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