华盛顿州一名高中女摔跤手及其母亲已请求最高法院发布命令，阻止跨性别女孩在即将到来的赛季中与她竞争。大法官们随时可能在这场有争议的争端中采取行动。
A Washington state high school wrestler and her mother have asked the Supreme Court to issue an order that would block transgender girls from competing against her this upcoming season. The justices could act anytime in the contentious dispute.
但他们的行动方式可能会因华盛顿州最近通过的一项投票提案而变得复杂，该提案禁止跨性别女孩在该州学校参加女子体育比赛。一项旨在阻止该提案生效的新诉讼可能会进一步复杂化局势。
But how they do so could be complicated by the recent passage of a Washington ballot measure that bars transgender girls from playing girls’ sports in the state’s schools. It could be further complicated by a new lawsuit that seeks to stop that measure from taking effect.
最高法院处理这起诉讼的方式可能会对全国产生超出这一案件本身的影响。这是因为代表该家庭的保守派基督教法律团体已要求大法官利用此案来解决该领域的下一个法律前沿问题。法院已批准禁止跨性别女性和女孩参加她们选择的体育比赛，但留下了学校是否可以允许此类比赛的问题。
How the high court handles the litigation could have nationwide implications beyond this one case. That’s because the conservative Christian legal group representing the family has asked the justices to use the matter to resolve the next frontier of legal issues in this area. The court has approved bans on transgender women and girls competing in their chosen sports, while leaving open the question of whether schools can allow such competition.
在华盛顿案中提交给最高法院的待审申请中，代表Stephanie Lynne Brown及其女儿Kallie Keeler（法院文件中以首字母缩写K.M.K.署名，并在ADF案件宣传材料中被提及）的律师表示，法院可借此裁决“性别认同参与政策”是否违反联邦法律中关于“对女子不如男子”的体育规定，以及一位母亲的“基本权利——指导其子女照护是否赋予她在女儿被迫与男性运动员接触或竞技技能类项目竞争前获得通知和退出权”。
In the pending application to the justices in the Washington case, lawyers with the Alliance Defending Freedom said the court could use it to decide whether “gender-identity participation policies” violate federal law against “treating females worse than males in sports,” as well as whether a parent’s “fundamental right to direct her child’s care entitles her to notice and opt-out before her daughter is forced to compete against male athletes in contact or competitive-skill sports.”
ADF代表Stephanie Lynne Brown及其女儿Kallie Keeler。她们于10月初向最高法院申请禁令，此前联邦上诉法院小组拒绝批准该禁令。诉讼已充分准备数周，但法官尚未作出裁决——可能是在等待上周选举中的一项公投结果，尽管目前的沉默仍留给人们猜测的空间。
ADF represents Stephanie Lynne Brown and her daughter, Kallie Keeler, who is identified in court papers by her initials, K.M.K., and is named in ADF’s promotional materials on the case. They applied for an injunction at the Supreme Court in early October, after a federal appeals court panel declined to grant one. The litigation has been fully briefed for weeks, but the justices have not yet acted — possibly because they have been waiting for the results of the ballot measure from last week’s election, though their silence thus far leaves it to speculation.
在周一致司法官员的信中，州官员引用该法案的通过，认为不应进行干预，而应让州的程序“自行进行”。他们表示，该法案即将获得认证并实施，“可能会改变并可能解决本案所涉及的政策，并可能实质性影响是否需要任何临时救济，以及任何在案争议的范围”。
In a letter to the justices on Monday, state officials cited the measure’s passage as a reason not to intervene but rather to let the state’s process “run its course.”They said the measure’s impending certification and implementation “is likely to alter, and may resolve, the policy that is the subject of the application, and could materially affect whether any interim relief is needed, as well as the scope of any live controversy.”
信中称，该法案名为“倡议638”，计划于12月3日生效，届时学校将“禁止生理男性学生在男女学生分设分类的体育项目中与女性学生同场竞争”。信中还称，该法案要求“由学生的医疗保健提供者核实学生的性别”。在选举前，ADF的律师辩称法院不应等待选举结果，因为即使该法案通过，也要等到11月16日摔跤赛季开始后才会生效。该警告不足以促使法院在选举前采取行动。
The letter said the measure, called Initiative 638, is set to take effect Dec. 3 and will make schools “prohibit biologically male students from competing with and against female students in athletic activities that have separate classifications for male and female students.”It also said the measure requires “verification of a student’s sex by the student’s health care provider.”Ahead of the election, ADF lawyers argued that the court shouldn’t wait for the results because even if the measure passed, it wouldn’t take effect until after wrestling season starts on Nov. 16. That warning was not enough to get the court to act before the election.
选举后可能出现的另一个复杂因素是，美国公民自由联盟本周在华盛顿州法院提起诉讼，要求阻止该禁令生效。如果该诉讼成功，可能为最高法院介入基勒案提供更多机会。ADF的律师在周二致司法官员的另一封信中引用了这项新诉讼，作为仍需干预的理由之一。
Another potentially complicating factor in the wake of the election is that the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit this week in Washington state court seeking to halt the ban from taking effect. If that suit succeeds, it could create more of an opening for the Supreme Court to intervene in Keeler’s case. ADF lawyers cited the new suit in its own letter to the justices on Tuesday as one of the reasons that it said intervention was still needed.
目前尚不清楚司法官员将如何以及何时采取行动。即使他们选择介入，也可能选择发布一项旨在狭义解决基勒案的命令，而不对案件进行全面审查，也不以此设立全国性先例。
It’s unclear what the justices will do or when they will do it. Even if they choose to step in, they could opt to issue an order that attempts to resolve the application narrowly as it applies to Keeler, without taking up the case on full review and using it to set a nationwide precedent.
反对基勒和她母亲的上诉小组指出，该案源于她们声称一名跨性别摔跤手去年在一场比赛中性侵了基勒。但该小组表示，原告寻求的补救措施“远远超出了保护K.M.K.免受该学生伤害所合理必要的范围”，因为她们要求通知所有可能与她比赛的跨性别运动员。该小组驳回了其所谓的“从一名学生造成的伤害进行推断，声称需要针对整个学生群体提供事前救济，却未证明更窄的补救措施不足以解决问题”的尝试。
The appellate panel that ruled against Keeler and her mother noted that the case stemmed from their claim that a transgender wrestler sexually assaulted Keeler during a match last year. But the panel said the remedy the plaintiffs sought went “well beyond what is reasonably necessary to protect K.M.K. from that student,” because they demanded notice of all transgender athletes who might compete against her. The panel rejected what it called an attempt to “extrapolate from harm caused by one student, contending that prospective relief is needed as to an entire class of students without showing why a narrower remedy would not suffice.”