{"id":2535257,"date":"2026-01-13T16:16:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gorsuch-barrett-buy-into-trans-ideology-in-girls-sports-case-5\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T16:18:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T21:18:50","slug":"gorsuch-barrett-buy-into-trans-ideology-in-girls-sports-case-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gorsuch-barrett-buy-into-trans-ideology-in-girls-sports-case-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Gorsuch, Barrett Buy Into &#8216;Trans&#8217; Ideology In Girls&#8217; Sports Case"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fgorsuch-barrett-buy-into-trans-ideology-in-girls-sports-case-5%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2535257&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article argues that during Supreme Court oral arguments over whether men should be allowed to compete in women&#8217;s sports,Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett gave rhetorical support to transgender identity in ways the author finds troubling. It notes Gorsuch suggested people identifying as transgender might be treated as a &#8220;discrete&#8221; or legally protected group, pointing to his majority opinion in Bostock v. Clayton County, which interpreted anti\u2011transgender workplace discrimination as a form of sex discrimination. The piece contrasts that position with Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst&#8217;s view that a protected class must face discrimination comparable to that endured on the basis of race or sex.<\/p>\n<p>The article also recalls barrett&#8217;s separate opinion in United States v. Skrmetti, where she argued transgender status is not a suspect class because it lacks &#8220;obvious, immutable&#8221; characteristics and is &#8220;large, diverse, and amorphous.&#8221; Despite that, the author criticizes Barrett for repeatedly using terms like &#8220;trans girls&#8221; during argument and for suggesting prepubescent boys have no physical advantage over girls-a point Hurst contested with medical evidence.<\/p>\n<p>The author warns that, although the Court has allowed state limits on medical interventions for transgender youth, the sports and Title IX question could go the other way, especially given Gorsuch&#8217;s Bostock opinion and Chief Justice Roberts&#8217;s concurrence, which could make a pro\u2011trans outcome possible. The piece is an opinion column by Breccan F. Thies for The Federalist.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, both appointees of President Donald Trump, appeared to be buying into &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; ideology during oral arguments for a case regarding men playing in women&rsquo;s sports.<\/p>\n<p>Gorsuch&rsquo;s major contribution to the Tuesday oral arguments thus far was relatively early on, when he suggested that people identifying as &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; should be considered a &ldquo;discrete&rdquo; group &ldquo;given the history of de jure discrimination against transgender individuals in this country.&rdquo; The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gorsuch-barrett-buy-into-trans-ideology-in-girls-sports-case-2\/\" title=\"Gorsuch, ... Buy Into &#039;Trans&#039; ... In Girls&#039; Sports Case\">justice essentially asked<\/a> whether those who claim to be &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; should be a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/historic-significance-of-georgia-senate-contests\/\" title=\"Historic Significance of Georgia Senate Contests\">legally protected class<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This really comes as no surprise for Gorsuch, who <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/2708247\/biden-administration-using-supreme-courts-bostock-to-reshape-discrimination-law-nationwide\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">authored<\/a> <em>Bostock v. Clayton County<\/em>, which essentially invented a protected class for those claiming to be &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; with regard to Title VII workplace discrimination. <\/p>\n<p>However, in <em>Bostock<\/em>, he danced around the issue in an extremely strained and convoluted way by claiming that &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; discrimination was &ldquo;sex&rdquo; discrimination, since one would have to know the true sex of an individual in the first place in order to discriminate against a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/oregon-middle-schoolers-allowed-to-skip-class-to-watch-transgender-show\/\" title=\"Oregon Middle Schoolers ... To Skip Class To Watch ... Show\">trans-identifying person<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The Biden administration used that case to expand &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; identity into every part of its policy and <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >enforce radical gender ideology<\/a> across the federal government and in states and localities that received federal funding. Many conservatives consider <em>Bostock<\/em> to be the worst decision since <em>Roe v. Wade<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst replied to Gorsuch on Tuesday that while there has been some discrimination, the reality is that a protected class needs to have encountered discrimination that mirrors the &ldquo;discrimination that &hellip; people have faced on the basis of race or sex in this country.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Supreme Court dealt with this issue to some degree in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/supreme.justia.com\/cases\/federal\/us\/605\/23-477\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">United States v. Skrmetti<\/a><\/em>, which allowed states to ban the use of chemical castration drugs and genital mutilation surgeries for children claiming to be a sex or gender that conflicts with their biology.<\/p>\n<p>In <em>Skrmetti<\/em> Barrett actually wrote a separate opinion, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, explaining why &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; identity is not a separate protected class.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We have held that the mentally disabled, the elderly, and the poor are not suspect classes,&rdquo; she wrote, adding:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The Sixth Circuit held that transgender individuals do not constitute a suspect class, and it was right to do so. To begin, transgender status is not marked by the same sort of &ldquo;&lsquo;obvious, immutable, or distinguishing characteristics&rsquo;&rdquo; as race or sex. In particular, it is not defined by a trait that is &ldquo;&lsquo;definitively ascertainable at the moment of birth.&rsquo;&rdquo; The plaintiffs here, for instance, began to experience gender dysphoria at varying ages &mdash; some from a young age, others not until the onset of puberty. Meanwhile, the plaintiffs acknowledge that some transgender individuals &ldquo;detransition&rdquo; later in life &mdash; in other words, they begin to identify again with the gender that corresponds to their biological sex. Accordingly, transgender status does not turn on an &ldquo;immutable .&nbsp;.&nbsp;. characteristi[c].&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Nor is the transgender population a &ldquo;discrete group,&rdquo; as our cases require.&nbsp;Instead, like classes we have declined to recognize as suspect, the category of transgender individuals is &ldquo;large, diverse, and amorphous.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>However, despite Barrett&rsquo;s writing on the issue, in Tuesday&rsquo;s oral argument, she consistently referred to boys claiming to be &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; as &ldquo;trans girls&rdquo; and the like.<\/p>\n<p>While it is expected that the three left-wing justices will play word games like this &mdash; particularly Ketanji Brown Jackson, who famously claims to have no idea what a woman is despite being a woman herself &mdash; having a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/gorsuch-barrett-buy-into-trans-ideology-in-girls-sports-case\/\" title=\"Gorsuch, ... Buy Into &#039;Trans&#039; ... In Girls&#039; Sports Case\">conservative justice give linguistic legitimacy<\/a> to the idea that men can become women or that there are people who are truly &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; is unacceptable.<\/p>\n<p>Barrett also <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/JCNSeverino\/status\/2011120192491786300?s=20\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">suggested<\/a> that prepubescent boys have no physical advantage over prepubescent girls, which Hurst quickly dispelled, pointing to medical evidence that boys do have advantages over girls even at such a young age.<\/p>\n<p>While the current Supreme Court majority ruled in favor of allowing state bans on the medical industry side of the &ldquo;transgender&rdquo; debate, the issue of sports and Title IX could end differently. After all, the fact that Gorsuch wrote the pro-&ldquo;transgender&rdquo; majority opinion in <em>Bostock <\/em>and Chief Justice John Roberts joined in that opinion sets up the potential for a 5-4 decision in favor of men in women&rsquo;s sports.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Breccan F. Thies is the White House correspondent for The Federalist. He previously covered education and culture issues for the Washington Examiner and Breitbart News. He holds a degree from the University of Virginia and is a 2022 Claremont Institute Publius Fellow. You can follow him on X: @BreccanFThies.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gorsuch, Barrett appear pro-trans in sports case<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":179,"featured_media":2535258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-13-134912.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[23413,42742,12186,32275,35159],"class_list":["post-2535257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-barrett","tag-girls-sports","tag-gorsuch","tag-supreme-court","tag-transgender-rights"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Screenshot-2026-01-13-134912.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/179"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2535257"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535257\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2535262,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2535257\/revisions\/2535262"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2535258"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2535257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2535257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2535257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}