On today’s episode, Jamie Reed moderates a roundtable discussing the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. At the table: Cori Cohn — co-host of Informed Dissent, who has testified in many states on this exact issue. Kara Dansky — attorney and author of The Abolition of Sex and The Reckoning: How the Democrats and the Left Betrayed Women and Girls. She’s a former ACLU senior counsel on criminal justice policy, a former president of the U.S. chapter of Women’s Declaration International, and a former board member of the Women’s Liberation Front. She describes herself as a lifelong Democrat. Kim Jones — co-founder of the Independent Council on Women’s Sports, or ICONS, the organization funding litigation against the NCAA over transgender eligibility policy. She’s a former All-American tennis player at Stanford; she got involved after watching young women compete against Lia Thomas in 2022. Leyland Streiff — co-founder and lead organizer of Maine Girl Dads, and principal officer of the Protect Girls Sports in Maine ballot committee. A father of three who relocated his family to Maine after decades in the New York area, he led the citizen-initiative signature drive that gathered more than 76,000 signatures. Decided 6-3. Majority opinion by Justice Kavanaugh, joined by Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett. The majority held that neither Title IX nor the Equal Protection Clause prevents states from reserving girls’ and women’s school sports for biological females. Thomas and Gorsuch each wrote separate concurrences. Justice Sotomayor wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, joined by Kagan and Jackson; Jackson also wrote a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. Notably, all nine justices agreed the states hadn’t violated Title IX — the three liberals only dissented on the Equal Protection question, arguing the case should have gone back to a lower court to develop the factual record on competitive advantage. Chief Justice John Roberts Male · Age 71 · Appointed by President George W. Bush (R), 2005 * Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) — Dissented from the majority’s recognition of a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, arguing the decision should have been left to the democratic process rather than decided by the Court. * Bostock v. Clayton County (2020) — Joined Justice Gorsuch’s majority opinion holding that Title VII’s ban on sex discrimination in employment extends to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. * United States v. Skrmetti (2025) — Authored the majority opinion upholding Tennessee’s ban on certain gender-affirming medical treatments for minors, applying rational-basis review. * This ruling — Joined Kavanaugh’s majority opinion. Justice Clarence Thomas Male · Age 78 · Appointed by President George H.W. Bush (R), 1991 * Obergefell — Dissented, joined Scalia’s and wrote his own dissent arguing the majority’s reasoning had no basis in the Constitution’s text or history. * Bostock — Dissented, joining Alito’s opinion arguing the majority rewrote the statute rather than interpreting it. * Skrmetti — Joined the majority. * This ruling — Wrote a concurrence arguing biological sex is an immutable characteristic and that a man does not have a legal right to compete against women based on gender identity. Justice Samuel Alito Male · Age 76 · Appointed by President George W. Bush (R), 2006 * Obergefell — Dissented, warning the ruling would be used to brand traditional marriage views as bigotry. * Bostock — Wrote the primary dissent (joined by Thomas), arguing the majority’s textualism was a pretext for judicially imposed policy change that only Congress had authority to make. * Skrmetti — Joined the majority. * This ruling — Joined the majority. Justice Sonia Sotomayor Female · Age 72 · Appointed by President Barack Obama (D), 2009 * Obergefell — Joined the majority recognizing a right to same-sex marriage. * Bostock — Joined the majority extending Title VII protections. * Skrmetti — Dissented from the majority upholding Tennessee’s minor gender-care ban. * This ruling — Wrote the lead dissent, arguing the majority resolved factual questions about competitive advantage that should have gone to a lower court first, and read a summary of her dissent aloud from the bench — a signal of unusually strong disagreement. Justice Elena Kagan Female · Age 66 · Appointed by President Barack Obama (D), 2010 * Obergefell — Joined the majority. * Bostock — Joined the majority. * Skrmetti — Dissented. * This ruling — Joined Sotomayor’s dissent. Justice Neil Gorsuch Male · Age 58 · Appointed by President Donald Trump (R), 2017 * Bostock — Authored the majority opinion himself, reasoning as a textualist that firing someone for being gay or transgender necessarily involves treating them differently because of sex — one of the most consequential LGBT-rights opinions ever written by a conservative justice. * Skrmetti — Joined the majority. * This ruling — Joined the majority and wrote his own concurrence. * (Gorsuch was not yet on the Court for Obergefell in 2015.) Justice Brett Kavanaugh Male · Age 61 · Appointed by President Donald Trump (R), 2018 * Bostock — Dissented, arguing the Court overstepped its role and that any expansion of Title VII protections should come from Congress. * Skrmetti — Joined the majority. * This ruling — Authored the majority opinion, framing it as declining to require “an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America,” while stating that transgender girls and women who want to play sports deserve “respect” and should not be “ostracized or vilified.” * (Kavanaugh was not yet on the Court for Obergefell.) Justice Amy Coney Barrett Female · Age 54 · Appointed by President Donald Trump (R), 2020 * Skrmetti — Joined the majority. * This ruling — Joined the majority. * (Barrett joined the Court in 2020, after both Obergefell and Bostock.) Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson Female · Age 55 · Appointed by President Joe Biden (D), 2022 * Skrmetti — Dissented. * This ruling — Joined Sotomayor’s dissent and additionally wrote her own separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part. * (Jackson joined the Court in 2022, after both Obergefell and Bostock.) Shop our Merch Store: We have mugs, t-shirts, and tote bags for sale! Stay Informed and Ready to Dissent! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit informeddissentpodcast.substack.com/subscribe
