Conservative Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was taken to task on Tuesday over his non-legalistic claims in a ruling that allows states to bar transgender female athletes from participating on girls’ and women’s sports teams.
In the 6-3 decision for the conservative majority Justice Brett Kavanaugh took the lead and wrote that schools "may determine eligibility for women's and girls' sports based on biological sex."
"Separate sports teams for biological males and biological females are reasonable," he added.
For his part Thomas went a step further, demonstrating his own personal bias in his concurrence.
“Because ‘gender dysphoria’ is a mutable mental state that is the object of psychiatric treatment, it does not resemble the immutable characteristics on the basis of which our precedents have applied heightened scrutiny— race, sex, or national origin,” he wrote before adding, “Second, as the Court recognizes, this case concerns ‘biological men’ and ‘boys who identify as girls.’ Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are.”
He later added, “To use language to obscure reality—to show ‘indifference regarding the truth’— is to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens /as equal[s].’”
According to Balls & Strikes Editor in Chief Jay Willis, Thomas' comments are reprehensible.
The legal analyst wrote on Bluesky, “Clarence Thomas's concurring opinion in the trans sports ban case in West Virginia contains some of the ugliest transphobic stuff I have ever seen in a legal opinion. Straight-up gleeful. Vile man.”
“Thomas simply couldn't join the opinion, this corrupt, misanthropic bigot had to throw in his two cents and put his bigotry into the record,” New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie concurred.
He elaborated, “… also this is a great example of how Clarence Thomas's self-satisfaction cannot hide the fact that he is not that bright. ‘man and woman,’ ‘boy and girl’ are social terms that categorize gender presentation, not descriptions of ‘biological’ sex. nor are they binary! this guy has spent the last 30 years of his life huffing his own farts and being surrounded by people who tell him that his farts smell like chanel #5 and it shows.”