On June 30, the Supreme Court ruled, 6-3 that states may bar transgender girls and women from girls’ and women’s sports teams. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote that states may keep these teams for “biological females” and set eligibility by “biological sex.” The country will now spend days arguing about fairness on the field. We’ll debate race times, records, and who has earned a place on the roster.

I want to redirect this conversation, because I study something different and because the frame we’ve settled on misses the something important. 

I’m a public health researcher. My work focuses on how the conditions people live under get into the body and influence health over a lifetime. I’m talking about conditions such as laws, policies, and the everyday climate of acceptance or rejection. 

Two features of this ruling deserve more attention than the sports fight is giving them: the lifelong costs even a “narrow” decision sets in motion, and the question the Court declined to decide.

Start with how a ruling like this reaches the body, because that pathway is what makes this a public health story. My area of research has a name for what laws like this do: structural stigma. It’s the way statutes and court rulings can mark an entire group as lesser, and in doing so become a chronic stressor for every member of that group. 

The overwhelming majority of transgender kids will never compete for a state title. They still learned, from the highest court in the country, that their belonging is conditional. The stress that follows from that lesson is associated with higher rates of depression, anxiety, and poorer health across LGBTQ populations. A consistent finding in this literature is that social acceptance can disrupt such harmful trajectories. But this ruling pushes the country the other way.

I want to emphasize that the question of fairness is important, and the girls and women who raise it deserve to be heard. But the ruling does not resolve this question. It flattens it.

The science on athletic performance and gender transition is truly complicated and individual. It varies by sport, by person, by age, and by life circumstance. The Court grounded its decision in biological sex and then declined to reckon with what biology shows. The West Virginia teenager at the center of the case has been on puberty blockers since before male puberty began. The advantage the law claims to police never developed in her. A rule that treats her like an adult athlete disregards biology.

Here is the part a policy-minded reader should pay attention to. For decades, the central legal question about transgender Americans has been this: When the government treats transgender people differently, how good does its reason have to be? Courts don’t judge all discrimination in the same way. If a law sorts people by race or sex, the state must provide a strong justification, and many such laws fail. But if a law tries to draw an ordinary distinction, like who qualifies for a license, judges tend to wave it through as long as there’s a reasonable purpose. Whether a law singling out transgender people gets the skeptical look (what lawyers call heightened scrutiny) or the easy pass has not been settled. And this ruling, despite its subject, still did not settle it.  

How did the Court avoid the question its own case raised? Following last year’s decision in Skrmetti (the gender-affirming care case), the Court described these laws as drawing lines by biological sex, not transgender status. Courts endorsed sex-separated teams long ago; separate teams are the reason girls’ sports exist. So a law framed as a “sex” line lands on ground the courts have already approved, while a “transgender” line would have forced the choice between the skeptical look and the easy pass. The Court chose the frame that let it stay silent.

That silence creates exposure for transgender people – and I mean that word the way my field of public health uses it, for a condition that puts a whole population at risk. The same unanswered question now hangs over health care, employment, identification documents, public accommodations, and every domain where the level of scrutiny is the whole ballgame. And the Court read Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in schools, through the same lens: “biological sex,” full stop. Advocates are right to see protections far beyond sports as newly vulnerable.

This is where my own research makes me most uneasy. I study LGBTQ adults in their 60s, 70s, and 80s, who came of age in a far more hostile America. Their lives show that the cost of stigma accumulates. Chronic stress works its way under the skin and surfaces years and decades later. Researchers see these deleterious outcomes in mental health, in physical health, and in emerging research like my own that explores the aging brain. So we should understand this decision for what it is: a long-term health decision the country is making on behalf of a generation of children.

Practically, the ruling compels no state to do anything. It tells the more than two dozen states that have passed these bans that they stand on solid ground, and it sends the rest of the fight back to statehouses and school boards, where trans youth and their families often hold little power. The ruling arrives just over a year after the Court let states ban the medical care many of these same young people depend on. Each law is a single stressor. Together they are a dangerous environment.

We know what protects these children. Acceptance, inclusion, and the dignity of being treated as though they belong. The Court made all three harder to offer, and left open the question that determines how much harder it can get. It is the children who needed those protections who will bear the cost, this sports season and for the rest of their lives. 

Harry Barbee, Ph.D., is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where they study LGBTQ health, aging, and public policy.

There are moments when an incident stops being merely a local story and begins to reveal something much deeper. What happened on June 28 outside One Church, in Comerío, Puerto Rico, belongs in that category.

I do not know who painted the rainbow colors on the asphalt and on a roadside guardrail. I do not know what motivated them, and it is not my place to justify their actions. If someone believes a law was broken, there are authorities and legal mechanisms to address that. That is not the point of this reflection.

The point is the words that followed.

Hours after those colors appeared, Pastor Jorge J. Santiago Reyes went live on social media. He said he felt threatened. He described what happened as a physical attack against his church. He appeared angry and disappointed. He called those who painted the rainbow “cowards” and “charlatans.” He expressed frustration with the support that, according to him, the municipal government of Comerío has shown toward the LGBTQ community, and with those who support posts related to that community. He repeated several times that the people responsible had “crossed the line.” He ended his message by saying, “These charlatans have to be stopped.”

As I listened to his words, I stopped thinking about the paint.

I began thinking about fear.

There is one phrase the pastor repeated again and again: “They crossed the line.” Yet he never explained what that line was. If he was referring to a possible violation of the law, that is for the authorities to determine. If he meant respect for property, there are also procedures to deal with that. But when that line remains undefined and the message begins to associate a rainbow with a threat, the question changes. It is no longer only about a guardrail or a road. It becomes a question about what boundary, in the pastor’s view, was actually crossed.

Paint can be erased.

A brush can cover the asphalt and return a guardrail to its original color.

What does not disappear so easily is the meaning of those colors.

And perhaps that is where the real conflict begins.

It is significant that this happened precisely on June 28, the day when the LGBTQ community remembers a history marked by exclusion, violence, and the struggle for dignity. What represents memory, hope, and the possibility of living without hiding for millions of people was presented by others as a threat.

I do not know why someone painted that rainbow. I do not need to know in order to ask whether those were the words society should expect from a pastor.

A religious leader may feel hurt, frustrated, or angry. What he cannot forget is the responsibility that comes with every public expression. His words do not end when a livestream ends. They move beyond the space of his church, reach people who may never share his faith, and help shape the way others see those who think differently. When a pastor calls other people “charlatans” and “cowards,” says they “have to be stopped,” and turns a rainbow into evidence of an attack, he is no longer speaking only from frustration. He begins to build a discourse that can feed rejection toward a community far larger than the people responsible for that act.

There was another moment in the livestream that caught my attention. The pastor reminded viewers how much he has served Comerío, how much he has accompanied his community, and how much he has worked for it. I have no reason to question that service. I am sure many people can testify to the good he has done.

That is precisely why it was difficult to hear.

Pastoral vocation is not about reminding a town of everything one has done for it when conflict appears. Service does not lose its value when it goes unrecognized; it loses something when it becomes an argument to claim a moral position from which to speak down to others. A person who serves does so because that is the nature of the calling, not because that service grants authority to discredit those who think differently.

As a pastor, that part of the message left me deeply uneasy. Not because I expect ministers of God to be perfect. We are not. But because our words carry weight, we are called to speak with greater responsibility. Some expressions build bridges. Others raise walls. Some words invite encounter. Others end up justifying rejection.

The paint will disappear. A brush will be enough to cover the asphalt and return the guardrail to its original color.

The words will not disappear as easily.

They will remain recorded in a video, shared again and again on social media, and remembered by those who heard them. They will remain long after the last trace of paint has been erased.

When this episode is remembered, it probably will not be because of the rainbow that appeared outside One Church, in Comerío, Puerto Rico.

It will be because of the words a pastor chose to use when speaking about it.

And that difference changes everything.

Last month, Center Faith hosted the 43rd annual Pride Interfaith Service titled “In Faith We Exist. Resist. Persist!” at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. Amid torrential downpours, queer leaders and people of faith from Muslim, Catholic, Episcopalisn, Unitarian Universalist, Jewish, Pagan, and many other communities gathered in a church immediately behind the John Adams building. 

In the two-hour service, leaders spoke about the power of faith in the fight for LGBTQ rights and against Chrisitan nationalism, all while honoring three lifelong leaders in the D.C. LGBTQ interfaith community. 

The service began with Rev. Michelle Morgan welcoming everyone to St. Mark’s Episocal Church, followed by greetings from Robert Sanchez, representing The DC LGBTQ+ Community Center, Japer Bowles, representing the D.C. Mayor’s Office of LGBTQ Affairs, and Danielle Goldstone, representing the Interfaith Council of Metro Washington. 

Rev. Ebony Peace, a Unitarian Universalist community minister and one of the service organizers, welcomed everyone with a blessing:

“Today in this interfaith worship service, we celebrate our existence. We honor those past and present who resist oppression. We acknowledge today that the fight for freedom and dignity is not over. We will be here. We will not be silent, and we will not back down.”

Representatives from diverse faith traditions followed by creating and blessing the space with a libation ritual by Rev. Elder Dr. Akosua McCray from Unity Fellowship Church of Washington, DC, a recognition and grounding in the elements by David Dashifen Kees from The Firefly House, along with readings from Aura Kaiser (DC Queer Muslims), Daisaku Leslie (Sokka Gakkai International), and Jonah Richmond and Rachel Dubin from Jewish temples throughout the Washington, DC area. 

Rev. Cathy Alexander and her partner Dr. Carla Sherrell shared an offering on love, an interpretation of 1 Corinthians 13 and a contemporary meditation by Rev. Tess Baumberger on behalf of the Metropolitan Community Church in DC, followed by words of joy by Rev. Thomas Wieczorek from the National Catholic Church and silent meditation led by Joe Izzo from the Friends Meeting of Washington. 

After songs and responsorial affirmations, Bishop Mariann Budde, who is perhaps best known for delivering the homily at the January 2025 interfaith prayer service immediately following Donald Trump’s second presidential inauguration, spoke at the service. In her gentle but determined voice that reverberated throughout the space, she asserted that “I’m here tonight to affirm the unshakable goodness of each person here and of every person, and to say without equivocation that what needs to be resisted by each and everyone one of us is anything that would negate that goodness, that would cause any of us to feel less than worthy of love and belonging.”

She was followed by a beautiful call and response song led by Cantor Ze’evi Tovlev from Temple Shalom titled “The Birds Don’t Know.” As Cantor Tovlev sang the words “I will sing a song of mourning, I will transform and let go,” this service shifted to recognizing–as it had when Elder Akosua McCray led the libation ritual, all the queer and trans elders who have gone before us, including one of the honorees this evening: SaVanna Wanzer who passed away in April of this year. 

SaVanna Wanzer was one of the original founders of DC Trans Pride and DC Black Trans Pride. As one of the first leaders creating transgender programming at DC Black Pride, she fought to represent and celebrate her lived experiences, and as a Black trans woman living with HIV, she regularly volunteered for DC’s Whiteman-Walker Health clinic and became the first recipient of its Robert Fenner Urquhart Award recognizing her service. What many people do not know is that Wanzer was an active member and ordained Deacon at Westminster Presbyterian Church, which hosted the first Transpride event in Washington, DC. 

At this year’s service, she was honored by Rev. Danielle Dufoe, a Presbyterian minister who is the first Black trans woman to complete both divinity and seminary school, who called the fierce advocate and friend both “mother” and “champion.” 

 “We need folks like SaVanna, and we need folks like Jesus,” Dufoe said, “who says no man takes my life but I lay it down for the sake of salvation. And SaVanna is saying no man took my life. I laid it down for beloved community.”

Following a remembering of Wanzer’s life, Rev. Dr. Wallace Charles Smith recognized Bishop Cheeks, affectionately known as “Rainey,” is a native Washingtonian who founded Inner Light Ministries in Washington, DC in 1993. Before his time as an ordained minister, he was the lead coordinator for the famous DC “Clubhouse,” where the LGBTQ+ community found both social and spiritual refuge in a space that was totally drug and alcohol free. Continuing the spirit of the “Clubhouse,” he founded Us Helping Us, an organization supporting African Americans who live with HIV/AIDS that fought shame and stigma inside and outside of the LGBTQ+ community. 

“Through his ministry and public witness, countless individuals found the courage to live authentically and to claim both their faith and their identity. Tonight, as we affirm that in faith, we exist, resist, and persist, we celebrate a man who has done exactly that. He has existed unapologetically. He has resisted exclusion, stigma, and injustice. He has persisted through epidemics, discrimination, silence, and struggle,” Smith said. 

“And through it all, he has continued to remind us of his enduring spiritual affirmation. I see the God in you,” Rev. Smith’s voice thundered as he turned to face his mentor and friend.  

Finally, Rev. McCray, a Black lesbian founding pastor of Unity Fellowship Church of Washington, DC, recognized Michael Vanzant. Vanzant served as co-pastor of Faith Temple in Washington, which has described itself as the nation’s first explicitly Black, gay Christian congregation. Vanzant took over the reins after its founder–Dr. James S. Tinney–died in 1988 of AIDS. Although he stepped away from his role as co-pastor several years after succeeding Tinney, he assumed a pastoral role again in the early 2000s and has continued fighting for LGBTQ+ inclusion in Christian and interfaith spaces ever since, serving on the organizing committee for the Pride Interfaith Service. 

McCray shared that “the power that he gave to people to preach, to sing, he gave them rope to pull people at the other end toward them.”

The two living honorees — Cheeks and Vanzant — were presented with certificates expressing the community’s gratitude. 

A small celebration with food was held in the parish hall after the conclusion of the service that many described as “profound and moving.” Although fewer people than normal attended the service–approximately 60 people in total, it was an important moment for many queer and trans people who are navigating their relationship with faith, especially as far right actors use religion and religious liberty to justify their anti-LGBTQ+ policies. 

Amid the rise of Christian nationalism asserting a heternormative, trans-exclusionary politic, faith leaders affirmed the power of queer and trans people to claim and become empowered by faith. 

Emma Cieslik is a D.C.-based museum worker and public historian.