Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas issued a sharply worded concurring opinion Tuesday, asserting that transgender language constitutes a “lie to the public” as the Court upheld state bans preventing athletes assigned male at birth from competing against biological females in school sports.
“Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are,” Thomas wrote. He emphasized that sex is an immutable biological characteristic, binary in nature, and that terms like “man” and “woman” correspond strictly to adults and children of each sex.
Thomas went further, arguing that using language to obscure reality—showing “indifference regarding the truth”—amounts to lying to the public and failing to treat citizens as equals. He referenced the clinical term “gender dysphoria,” which the American Psychiatric Association defines as psychological distress caused by the incongruence between a person’s gender identity and their sex assigned at birth. Notably, not all transgender or nonbinary individuals experience this distress; it only arises when the mismatch causes significant impairment in daily life.
The justice argued that gender dysphoria “does not resemble the immutable characteristics on the basis of which our precedents have applied heightened scrutiny—race, sex, or national origin.” His opinion aligns with a broader conservative push to restrict transgender rights, particularly in youth sports.
In a related development, the Court earlier upheld state bans on transgender girls in school sports, a decision that has sparked intense debate over equal protection and fairness. Thomas’s concurrence echoes themes from his dissent in the birthright citizenship case, where he warned of devalued citizenship.
Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented in part, arguing that such state laws discriminate on the basis of sex without sufficient justification, violating the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause. Sotomayor wrote that the ruling “inflicts a hardship on those it disfavors without giving them the fair and full opportunity the Constitution requires to litigate their contentions.”
The ruling is part of a broader conservative legal trend. The Court recently delivered final rulings on both birthright citizenship and transgender athlete bans, cementing a shift in federal policy. Thomas’s strong language signals that the Court’s conservative wing views transgender identity not as a protected status but as a challenge to biological reality.
Critics argue that Thomas’s opinion dismisses the lived experiences of transgender individuals and ignores medical consensus on gender dysphoria. Supporters, however, see it as a defense of women’s sports and objective truth. The decision is expected to embolden states to enact or defend similar restrictions, while civil rights groups prepare further legal challenges.
