The Transgender Sports Decision Was About Something Deeper Than Law

Read the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on transgender athletes — the majority’s decision, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the dissent, written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor — and you will see the members of the court arguing about something more fundamental than the law. They are arguing about who should be seen, whose story ought to be heard and who deserves to be protected.

Kavanaugh’s opinion contains a long lyrical tribute to female athletes. “They spend extraordinary time and effort to train in the heat and in the cold, to work out early in the morning and late at night, to get a little faster, to become a little stronger, to jump a little higher, to shoot a little better, to watch a little more video, to make the lonely journey back from an A.C.L. tear, to scrap for playing time, to start,........

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