SCOTUS Harms Trans Students

OUR STATEMENT

Today, the Supreme Court of the United States issued its decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, deeming it constitutional to ban transgender students from playing on school sports teams consistent with their gender identity. Dr. Jamila Perritt, ob/gyn in Washington DC and President & CEO of Physicians for Reproductive Health responds:

“No one should be excluded from participating in sports because of who they are. As physicians, we know how devastating the impact of this decision will be on young transgender students’ mental, physical, and social wellbeing. This decision comes at the end of a long year of systematic and orchestrated attacks against transgender people. From villainization by the Trump Administration via gender affirming care bans to statehouses passing dehumanizing bathroom bans and driver’s license bans to Attorney General’s demanding hospitals provide harmful and unscientific “detransition care,” today’s decision is yet another attempt to target, alienate and harass transgender people.

“Physicians for Reproductive Health is a community of hundreds of physicians around the country who know this to be true: transgender people, transgender youth especially, are worthy of compassionate, affirming, and evidence-based health care and resources.

“As advocates for abortion access, care that has been long targeted by political and religious extremists, we must see attacks on transgender people clearly: this is a continued effort to control what people can and cannot do with their bodies, and it is absolutely unacceptable. Our collective liberation is intertwined; we must all join in pushing back against attacks on transgender people if we aim to keep building a future where everybody can live full lives.”