Trump Justice Department to defend Idaho’s ban on transgender athletes

The Trump Justice Department is defending Idaho’s law that bans biological males from competing in women’s sports.

Attorney General William Barr announced the DOJ filed court documents Friday, siding with the state in a legal battle in federal court brought by civil rights groups on behalf of transgender athletes. The groups claim the Idaho law is discrimination on the basis of sex and violates transgender athletes’ constitutional rights.

Idaho Gov. Brad Little, a Republican, signed earlier this year the state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which prevents biological male athletes from competing in women’s sports. It was the first state to enact such a law.

“Allowing biological males to compete in all-female sports is fundamentally unfair to female athletes,” Mr. Barr said in the press release announcing the DOJ’s involvement in the case. “Single-sex athletics is rooted in the reality of biological differences between the sexes and should stay rooted in objective biological fact.”

The attorney general said the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution recognizes physiological differences between sexes in sports, defending the state law’s legality.

“Because of these differences, the Fairness Act’s limiting of certain athletic teams to biological females provides equal protection,” he said. “This limitation is based on the same exact interest that allows the creation of sex-specific athletic teams in the first place — namely, the goal of ensuring that biological females have equal athletic opportunities.”