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SCOTUS Hears Oral Arguments On High Profile Case

SCOTUS Hears Oral Arguments On High Profile Case

The Supreme Court’s recent consideration of the trans athletes case produced a moment that has already echoed far beyond the courtroom, and not because it clarified anything. As my colleague Ward Clark reported earlier, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s comments stood out less for their legal precision and more for their sheer opacity. Listening to the exchange, one is struck by how a question that should hinge on clear definitions instead dissolved into a tangle of jargon and unfinished thoughts.


Justice Jackson’s statement attempted to draw a distinction within the broader category of transgender athletes, suggesting that some individuals, due to medical interventions or other factors, might not present the same competitive or safety concerns cited by the state. On its face, this sounds like an effort to introduce nuance. In practice, however, it highlighted a deeper problem: when categories themselves are ill-defined, even nuance becomes incoherent. The law depends on classifications that can be consistently applied. When those classifications shift mid-sentence, the foundation starts to wobble.


That problem was underscored when Justice Jackson remarked, “For cisginger girls, they can play consistent with their gender. For transgender girls, they can’t.” The word itself prompted immediate confusion. “Cisginger” is not a recognized term in biology, medicine, or even the evolving lexicon of gender theory. The moment felt less like a serious legal argument and more like an accidental parody. It called to mind cultural satire, particularly South Park’s long-running habit of skewering linguistic excess by inventing terms like “transginger.” Satire works because it exaggerates reality, but here reality seemed to meet satire halfway.


What makes the moment notable is not merely a verbal slip, but what it symbolizes. During her confirmation hearings, Justice Jackson famously declined to define what a woman is, citing her lack of expertise as a biologist. That reluctance now looms large in cases where the definition of “woman” is not academic but central. Athletic competition, by its nature, is structured around physical differences. Courts evaluating such cases must grapple with those differences directly, not sidestep them with ambiguous language.


One can only imagine the discipline required by West Virginia Solicitor General Michael Williams to maintain composure during this exchange. Advocates come prepared to debate constitutional principles and statutory interpretation, not to untangle improvised terminology from the bench.

Written by Mark Stevens - January 14, 2026