Huffington Post: The Supreme Court’s Trans Athlete Ban Cases Are About Much More Than Sports
January 11. 2026
Senior Attorney Kel O’Hara was interviewed for a Huffington Post article ahead of two Supreme Court decisions that could ban transgender women and girls from playing on women’s sports teams, including how the cases could impact both trans and cisgender women and girl athletes, and the broader implications in a political environment that is increasingly transphobic and increasingly misogynistic.
“A lingering question that is still out there [is] if the Supreme Court will choose to address in this decision what level of scrutiny should be applied to trans folks and therefore what level of legal protection trans folks are entitled to,” said Kel O’Hara, a senior attorney at Equal Rights Advocates, a San Francisco-based nonprofit gender justice organization. Equal Rights Advocates signed on to an amicus brief by Public Counsel in support of the transgender plaintiffs. …
“Ultimately, this encourages increased gender policing and whether it’s explicit or more implicit like creating a culture of suspicion and mistrust,” O’Hara said. “We’re opening the door to harassment and hostile environments and reinforcing harmful stereotypes about gender and athletics. This can cause women and girls to feel pressure to subscribe to traditional ideas of femininity to keep themselves safe, and can force them to feel like they shouldn’t play sports because it’s going to violate their privacy and dignity.”
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