The transgender fight unfolding in the U.S. Supreme Court isn’t against definitions and interpretations.
Macy Petty, a former NCAA volleyball player who once found herself competing against a transgender-identified male, told CBN News this week the fight to protect the sanctity of women’s sports is, “at its heart, a spiritual battle,” an allusion to Ephesians 6:12.
Her comments come as the nine justices of the high court heard oral arguments for and against two laws — one in West Virginia and one in Idaho — intended to keep transgender-identifying males from competing on female sports teams.
The Supreme Court is expected to rule later this year on whether those bans violate Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. The decision will have nationwide implications in dozens of states.
The justices quickly garnered attention for their interactions and comments on the subject.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, appointed in 2022 by former President Joe Biden, said, “We are now looking at the definition of a girl and we’re saying only people who were girl-assigned at birth qualify.”
And, in an exchange with ACLU attorney Kathleen Hartnett, Justice Samuel Alito, appointed to the Supreme Court in 2006 by then-President George W. Bush, asked, “Is it not necessary for there to be … an understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?”
Hartnett, arguing on behalf of the transgender student in Idaho barred from competing on the Boise State University’s track and cross-country teams, answered Alito in the affirmative.
The justice then asked Hartnett, “for equal protection purposes,” to give him a definition of what it means to be male or female. The ACLU lawyer responded, “We do not have a definition.”
Alito, for his part, then replied, “How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what ‘sex’ means?”
Just hours before the high court began hearing oral arguments on the Idaho and West Virginia laws, Petty, a legislative analyst for Concerned Women for America, told CBN News she and her organization believe the issue “is much bigger than politics” and is fundamentally “a spiritual battle.”
“God created us in His image, male and female,” she said, referring to Genesis 1:27. “And there is something beautiful about that and the ways that God has created us — it tells the beautiful story of the Gospel, the most incredible story ever told. But that is threatening to those who hate God. They not only want to reject God as the Creator but also the ways that He reveals Himself through creation, like [the] male and female [binary].”
She continued, “We are counting it as a great privilege that the Lord would use us in this organization to fight back against the pure evil that is this agenda.”
In addition to her public advocacy for women’s sports, Petty has worked behind the scenes to advance protections for female spaces in athletics. She was one of the signatories on an amicus brief in support of the laws banning males who identify as females from competing on women’s sports teams.
“I count it as a great honor and a blessing,” she said of signing the brief. “It’s been incredible to see how that brief has expanded since [I first signed it]. When I first signed on, there was only about five or six people, and now we’ve got dozens and dozens of female athletes, Olympians, parents, doctors, so many [who have signed it].
You can watch our full interview with Petty in the video embedded above.
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