Democrat-Gazette online

I have been following the Supreme Court case concerning transgender athletes' participation in women's sports. While it is likely there will not be a decision handed down until summer, all signs seem to suggest the court will uphold state bans but not go so far as to make these bans federal law.

I am not sure what I think about this; I am still processing. It is tough. But I have been pleasantly surprised at the court's discussion of this matter. In an age when the world seems to be on fire and people's lack of trust in our institutions of government at a terribly low point--mine included--I derived a measure of hope from listening to the justices parse this issue the other day. From what I heard, they mostly behaved like principled-rather-than-partisan, fairly compassionate human beings. Which is what I'd like to see more of in all three branches of our government. As well as in all of us.

The CliffsNotes of the case, per Nina Totenberg, NPR's legal affairs correspondent, are these: Two transgender girls--one in college in Idaho, the other a fifth-grader in West Virginia--wanted to be part of their school track teams. But state law barred them from participating. Each of them went to court, contending that their respective state laws violate the equal protection clause of the Constitution and federal statutes barring discrimination against women in sports.

Twenty-seven states currently bar transgender girls from participating in sports teams at publicly funded schools. Arkansas, not surprisingly, is one. State governments can do that because public schools are taxpayer funded; it is presumably the accountability expected and endorsed by the people of the state whose tax dollars pay for the schools and their sports programs. Private schools don't have such rules, even though in several of these states, like ours, they take millions of tax dollars to fund their programs.

I have a friend and fellow Arkansan whose child, like the fifth-grader in this case, felt mismatched with her body long before puberty. My friend says she and her husband knew this by the time their child was age 2,........

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