ACR Project Amicus Briefs Support States Challenging Court of Appeals Insistence That the Equal Protection Clause Compels Coverage of Sex Changes

The ACR Project filed a pair of briefs supporting the petitions for certiorari of West Virginia and North Carolina seeking to overturn the outrageous contention of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals that the US Constitution (and, in one of these cases, Title IX) compel the state to cover sex changes.

North Carolina provides health insurance for its public employees.  The COA says the Constitution compels coverage of elective surgeries for those seeking to phenotypically mimic a different biological sex.

The COA had a similar message for West Virginia.  The Constitution and Title IX compelled the state to include the same coverage in its Medicaid program.

For both, the COA contended that the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision required this result.

Our briefs (copies are below) argue that the Fourth Circuit badly misreads Bostock and how its reasoning applies outside Title VII.  We first outline Bostock‘s reasoning and how it forbids rather than requires the COA’s reinterpretation of “sex.”  We continue to argue that, were the Fourth Circuit right, both Bostock‘s reasoning and Title IX would be unconstitutional.  Finally, we argue that the Fourth Circuit has created a judicial rule that is both linguistically impossible and impracticable.