In a surprisingly sound opinion (in B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education), federal district judge Joseph R. Goodwin ruled today in favor of West Virginia’s “Save Women’s Sports” law. Specifically, he ruled that B.P.J., a boy who identifies as a girl, does not have a right under the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX to participate on the girls’ cross-country and track teams at his middle school.
Today’s ruling by Goodwin (a Clinton appointee) ruling is especially surprising because 18 months ago he granted a preliminary injunction that required school officials to allow B.P.J. to try out for the girls’ teams. In granting that preliminary injunction, Goodwin ruled that B.P.J. was likely to succeed on his Equal Protection and Title IX claims, and his opinion was replete with pro-transgender rhetoric.
On the merits, Goodwin ruled today that the West Virginia law survives intermediate scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause: “The fact is … that a transgender girl is biologically male,” and West Virginia is “permitted to legislate sports rules on this basis [i.e., sex] because sex, and the physical characteristics that flow from it, are substantially related to athletic performance and fairness in sports.” As for Title IX: The West Virginia law “largely mirrors” Title IX, which “authorizes sex separate sports in the same manner.” (Goodwin dissolved the preliminary injunction that he had previously imposed.)
It takes both guts and humility for a judge to reverse himself on a matter like this (even as the litigation process might have cast some facts in a different light). Kudos to Judge Goodwin.