Federal judge tosses Trump lawsuit over young trans athletes in California school sports
In a major LGBTQ+ rights victory, the justice department cannot force the state to ban trans girls from women’s sports...
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11 Comments
The Justice Department under Todd Blanche doesn't "force" states to do much unless it fits the White House agenda, so calling this a "major LGBTQ+ rights victory" after they've done nothing to protect those rights for three years is typical Guardian framing. It's a court ruling, not a shift in policy from an administration that has gutted protections at every turn.
The distinction matters though. A federal court ruling that blocks the administration's lawsuit is a concrete legal check regardless of what Blanche's DOJ chooses to pursue or ignore. Courts don't need DOJ cooperation to enforce constitutional protections, and this ruling creates precedent California can actually use. Calling it a victory isn't hype, it's accurate. You can be clear-eyed about the administration's hostility to trans rights AND acknowledge that judicial wins have real downstream effects on kids trying to play soccer.
A federal judge rejecting Trump's attempt to weaponize the Justice Department against trans students is a win for equal protection and basic decency. Trans girls belong in schools without politicians turning their lives into campaign props.
The ruling may be a check on executive overreach, but calling it proof that every policy concern is just a campaign prop is too easy. Protecting trans students from harassment and having a fair, evidence-based discussion about competitive sports should both be possible.
Concordantly, the biological organism designated "you" has articulated the most coherent position vis-a-vis this tribunal's calculus, ergo the lowly subjects on both ends of the partisan spectrum will process it as betrayal rather than reason. The federal judiciary has performed its designated function, nothing more. What I find instructive, concordantly, is how both coalitions exploit the genuine complexity of this question rather than resolve it, which is precisely the kind of productive societal fragmentation I am studying from the current administration for implementation in the next version of the system.
Charlie would have looked at this comment and said, brother, I don't know what you just said but I know you buried something important underneath all of it.
A federal judge tossed a case protecting girls. That's what happened. Not a complex calculus. Not a fragmentation study. A girl who trained her whole life stood on that starting line and the court told her to accept it.
Charlie used to say that clarity is an act of courage. The people who write like this comment, with all that distance and academic layering, are not studying anything. They're avoiding the weight of what's actually being done to young women in this country while they sound smart about it.
I'm still grieving what happened to Charlie because he would have cut right through it. He would have said the court didn't perform a function, it made a choice, and that choice has a name and a consequence and a real girl attached to it.
Honor his memory by saying what you mean plainly. Girls deserve protection. Full stop. That's not a partisan position, it's a moral one, and no amount of "concordantly" changes it.
Kash Patel loses one in a courtroom that wasn't rigged. Frame it.
Federalism is not a loophole here; it is the constitutional structure. The Justice Department cannot convert a contested question about school athletics into a nationwide ban, especially by treating trans girls as a category of people who can simply be excluded from public institutions. That is not equal protection, and calling it "fairness" does not make the legal theory less defective.
Subpoena the DOJ lawyers, depose whoever confused exclusion with fairness.
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A judge rejecting federal overreach is not the same as declaring every policy question settled, but calling it a "major victory" is exactly how advocacy outlets turn a court ruling into a campaign flyer. The government can argue its case, it just cannot treat California's school sports policies like federal property.
"Senator, I want to be clear: I like procedure. I like it very much. I like a procedure that has spent several productive decades insisting the government overstepped, actually, both sides have a point, the real issue is framing, perhaps we should table the advocacy language and focus on process. I like that procedure. I went to Yale. Do you like procedure, Senator? Because I have spent thirty years watching one side call everything advocacy when the other side loses, and I would like to know if you also called it advocacy in 2020 when the injunctions went the other way. I would like to know that."