iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Happy Pride, friends. Tomorrow we keep fighting.

The cover of the book "Pride Puppy," by Robin Stevenson

Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Really well put criticism by Sotomayor here: the majority describes trans girls as an existential threat to women's sports but also so insignificant that excluding them doesn't raise any equal protection concerns.

"The majority's position is thus fundamentally inconsistent. It credits the West Virginia Legislature's concern that a class consisting of transgender girls like BPJ is large enough to pose an existential threat to girls' sports, but at the same time holds that this class is too small to be protected by the Equal Protection Clause. In other words, this potentially overbroad generalization is both necessary to furthering substantially the State's interests in girls' sports and effectively irrelevant to assessing the classification's lawfulness. The Court's equal protection precedents neither require nor support this contorted logic."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Sotomayor opens her dissent with the obvious response to Kavanaugh's blustering about athletics being zero-sum: BPJ is the only trans girl seeking to play sports in her state. This is so much effort and hatred mustered against a handful of children.

"In the five years since the ban has been in place, BPJ is the only transgender girl publicly identified in the State who has sought to play sports with other girls."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Gorsuch concurs to attempt to explain away Bostock: we reached a different result here because we answered the question differently! (Note that for many decades LGBTQ people regularly lost cases under Title VII because the EEOC said firing them wasn't discrimination.)

"The difference between this case and Bostock is that we face here a question that wasn't present there. In Bostock, again, no one doubted that firing someone because of his biological sex qualified as 'discrimination' under Title VII. Here, though, we face the question whether it qualifies as discrimination under Title IX for a federal funding recipient to sponsor sports teams restricted to biological women or girls alone. And for the reasons just laid out above and explored in depth by the Court, it does not. Title IX anticipates and approves single-sex living accommodations and sports teams in school settings; it does not treat them as unlawful discrimination."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Thomas is getting attention for saying plainly that he doesn't believe transgender people exist, but this says that too. Treating transgender people differently based on the definition of being transgender is just semantics dressing up the same denial of their existence.

"That argument, too, is unavailing. To begin, under this Court's decision in Skrmetti, the laws do not classify based on gender identity or transgender status. The laws classify on the basis of biological sex. By contrast, if a school had a co-ed sports team but prohibited all transgender individuals from participating on the team, that would be a distinct transgender classification and, unlike today's cases, would presumably not be analyzed and justified as a classification based on biological sex."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

This is a wild way of describing an as-applied challenge.

"The plaintiffs' as-applied argument is in essence a backdoor argument for strict scrutiny, which requires a much tighter relationship between the State's classification and the State's asserted interests."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

Now into the equal protection stuff. Kavanaugh again cites the VMI case to say that using a stereotype to exclude some people for whom that stereotype isn't accurate doesn't violate intermediate scrutiny. This is the exact opposite of what VMI held.

"But this Court's equal protection precedents allow general classifications like those made in the West Virginia and Idaho laws so long as there is at least a substantial relationship between the classification and the State's interests. (cites US v. VA) After all, 'most legislation classifies for one purpose or another, with resulting disadvantage to various groups or person.' (cites Skrmetti)"

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

What about Bostock, you might ask? Well employment and school are DIFFERENT, says Kavanaugh. Never mind that, you know, the operative word is the same and we're asking what that word means.

"We disagree. Title VII concerns employment, whereas Title IX as relevant here focuses on sports. the two factual contexts are vastly different."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

In the laughably "could have been worse," Kavanaugh writes that Title IX permits excluding trans students, rather than REQUIRES excluding trans students (he asked a couple questions about this at oral argument).

"The question is whether Title IX permits schools to maintain women's and girls' sports for biological females. The answer is yes."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 30/06/2026

And Kavanaugh starts out quoting US v. VA (saying VMI couldn't exclude women) for the proposition that men and women have physical differences, because he is a dick.

Those "[p]hysical differences between men and women" are "enduring," citing United States v. Virginia.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 06/03/2026

I'm in North Jersey for the morning presenting at the Women's Rights Law Reporter symposium - the first journal I published an article with!

A notebook labeled Women's Rights Law Reporter and program for that journal's symposium

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 29/01/2026

Also for the record here's how he parked, to then get mad I parked too close to him.

A car is parked. To its left, a cavernous open space. Its right tires are on top of the lines dividing the parking spaces.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 17/12/2025

As a scholar of masculinities, next time I want to murder a man I'm describing him as a pugnacious [height under six feet]

Excepted text reads "Deputy chief of staff James Blair, a pugnacious five foot nine, was next."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 27/11/2025

My very favorite Thanksgiving book. Actually it's a banger no matter what time of year.

A book called 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving, by Dav Pilkey, showing several happy children and turkeys

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

Counterpoint: my very American six year old engaged in the very American tradition of protest by crossing out the turkey on her Thanksgiving worksheet.

"I loved hearing about what Thanksgiving 'looks like' at their homes. We all got a chuckle from our class vegan with her crossed out turkey!"

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 01/11/2025

First house on my canvassing list has a Mikie Sherrill sign up. Come through, Jersey.

A yard sign reads Sherrill Caldwell for New Jersey

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 15/09/2025

No surprise given his platform seems to be "compliment Donald Trump," but NJ gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli wants to rip up the First Amendment and replace it with your employer telling you what you're allowed to say. (With a bonus reminder of how much he hates educators.)

Jack Ciattarelli's facebook account posts: "This Seton Hall University School of Law professor said she has 'zero empathy' for Charlie Kirk. This kind of irresponsible and hateful discourse is unacceptable. The University should have zero tolerance for her malicious comments and show her the door immediately."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

Apropos of nothing, here's a photo of Mar-a-lago.

A photo of Maralago, which has rounded windows in multiple rows and lots of palm trees.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

Update I found a better headline

"The Nightly" runs a story headlined "Who is this DICKHEAD" about an Australian neo-Nazi. It's a real story, I checked and everything! Unsurprisingly, the photo is a white guy with a moustache.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 01/09/2025

The right way to write a Trump headline, from @theguardian.com

A headline reads "Trump days he plans unconstitutional executive order to mandate ID for voters"

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 26/08/2025

I am so honored by the selection of my article "Transgender Students and the First Amendment" for a Dukeminier Award, given by the Williams Institute and the editors of the Dukeminier Awards Journal. All of the awardees will be presenting our work in a Zoom panel on 9/17.

A flyer advertises a panel discussion titled "Celebrating the Best in LGBTQ Legal Scholarship." RSVP to bit.ly/Dukeminier2025

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 25/08/2025

I and several of my friends working on liberal causes got really into gardening this summer, which is definitely not dissociating from the horrors surrounding us. Anyway, I just took these photos of a bumblebee sleeping on a flower.

A small bumblebee snoozes on a zinnia. No need to think about the fascism threatening the people and country we love.

Same bumblebee but a shot from above this time. Like the bumblebee, we shall return to the fight against Christian nationalism restored and refreshed tomorrow.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 19/08/2025

For your vindication-is-mine pleasure: a text from a new professor who I had as a student. (I told them no, not all, but there's always a couple....)

Now that classes have started and students are meeting with professors, I just want to apologize. I am listening to a student talk to the professor next to me and omg lol are we all like that???

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 12/08/2025

Hope all the law students got some quality swag this summer.

Two towels embroidered "Summer 2006 Sullivan & Cromwell LLP" lie next to a pool

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 28/07/2025

Hey so has anything big happened since last year, guys?

A sign for the 2025 Lavender Law conference, Queer Legal Scholarship Symposium

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 14/07/2025

me at the start of every sexual orientation gender identity and the law class next year

A "truth" (disparaging scare quotes) reading "What's going on with my 'boys' and, in some cases, 'gals?'" (sic, obviously)

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

This accurate statement of the law is described by Alito in Mahmoud as violating the religious rights of the parents of children who hear it. If you were wondering if this Court is coming for Obergefell, I think we have a pretty clear answer.

For example, if a student asserts that two men cannot get married, the guidance document encouraged teachers to respond by saying: "When people are adults they can get married. Two men who love each other can decide they want to get married."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Where, pray tell, does Alito think the homophobic protestors should go on this page? Would someone holding a sign saying "burn in hell, [insert slur]" make this ok in public schools?

Page from a children's book, people outside a castle look celebratory. Text reads "And on the two men's wedding day, the air filled with cheer and laughter, for the prince and his shining knight would live happily ever after."

Page from children's book showing two men wearing crowns standing close together, holding hands, and smiling.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

This is *insane*. According to Alito in Mahmoud, in a PICTURE BOOK for CHILDREN, if you show a same-sex wedding without including people objecting to the (legal, constitutionally protected) existence of marriage equality, that violates the religious rights of parents whose kids might read the book.

For example, the book Prince & Knight clearly conveys the message that same-sex marriage should be accepted by all as a cause for celebration. the young reader is guided to feel distressed at the prince's failure to find a princess, and then to celebrate when the prince meets his male partner. the book relates that "on the two men's wedding day, the air filled with cheer and laughter, for the prince and his shining knight would live happily ever after." Those celebrating the same-sex wedding are not just family members and close friends, but the entire kingdom. For young children, to whom this and the other storybooks are targeted, such celebration is liable to be processed as having moral connotations. If this same-sex marriage makes everyone happy and leads to joyous celebration by all, doesn't that mean it is in every respect a good thing?

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

If you were wondering if the Supreme Court is going to require tax dollars to go to religious schools, Mahmoud gives a clear preview of their answer.

Private elementary schools in Montgomery County are expensive; many cost $10,000 or more per year prior to financial aid. And homeschooling comes with a hefty price as well; it requires at least one parent to stay at home during the normal workday to educate children, thereby forgoing additional income opportunities. It is both insulting and legally unsound to tell parents that they must abstain from public education in order to raise their children in their religious faiths, when alternatives can be prohibitively expensive and they already contribute to financing the public schools.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

Alito in Mahmoud: every other parents' religion now dictates what your kid's public school can do.

Due to financial and other constraints, however, many parents "have no choice but to send their children to a public school." As a result, the right of parents "to direct the religious upbringing of their" children would be an empty promise if it did not follow those children into the public school classroom. We have thus recognized limits on the government's ability to interfere with a student's religious upbringing in a public school setting.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Thanks to @repherbconaway.bsky.social for the Town Hall tonight and his steadfast support of healthcare choices for women and trans youth. I choose to take the view as I exited as an omen.

Representative Herb Conaway gestures as he speaks in front of a sign that says Welcome to the Moorestown Parks and Rec Center

A spectacular rainbow arcs over Moorestown Town Hall

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

From Alito's opinion....since when do we use "[B]lack" as a noun?

The discrimination that the Court had chiefly in mind was discrimination against blacks, who undoubtedly constituted a "discrete and insular minority" that was denied equal participation in the political process. (Alito didn't capitalize "black," obviously.)

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Alito's language here is why I think other avenues of protection for trans kids such as the First Amendment are so important. To obnoxiously self-cite, see my article Transgender Students and the First Amendment: www.bu.edu/bulawreview/...

It does not regulate any other behavior in which minors might engage for the purpose of expressing their gender identity. It says nothing at all about names, pronouns, hair styles, attire, recreational activities or hobbies, or career interests.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

Shorter Barrett: equal protection of the law is hard, guys! (Also congratulations on discovering the countermajoritarian problem.)

Finally, holding that transgender people constitute a suspect class would require courts to oversee all manner of policy choices normally committed to legislative discretion.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

And here comes Thomas to go even further and say actual expertise on a subject is irrelevant to the legislators making policy choices about those subjects.

There are several problems with appealing and deferring to the authority of the expert class. First, so-called experts have no license to countermand the "wisdom, fairness, or logic of legislative choices."

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

We are in a post-facts world. There is no lack of medical consensus. There is universal medical consensus on one side and ideologically based, politically funded bad science on the other. But write enough BS reports and SCOTUS will give you cover. (and Harry Potter IP funds this bad science.)

This argument fails. As we have explained, there is a rational basis for SB1's classifications. Tennessee concluded that there is an ongoing debate among medical experts regarding the risks and benefits associated with administering puberty blockers and hormones to treat gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, and gender incongruence. SB1's ban on such treatments responds directly to that uncertainty.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

In which Roberts pretends that he doesn't know what "disdain" means.

Tennessee's stated interests in "encouraging minors to appreciate their sex" and in prohibiting medical care "that might encourage minors to bcome disdainful of their sex" simply reflect the State's concerns regarding the use of puberty blockers and hormones to treat gender dysphoria, gender identity disorder, and gender incongruence

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 18/06/2025

A glimmer of hope for cabining Skrmetti's impact - it's hard to argue that Trump's executive orders are not motivated by invidious discrimination when he is so explicit about it in the orders themselves.

But where a law's classifications are neither covertly nor overtly based on sex, we do not subject the law to heightened review unless it was motivated by an invidious discriminatory purpose.

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

Lol I'm not original but I *did* get markers

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 14/06/2025

My sign for the Haddon Township/Collingswood protest in South Jersey

Sign that reads "if not Gestapo, why Gestapo shaped?" with a no ICE symbol

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Dara Purvis @darapurvis.bsky.social · 06/06/2025

On my children's bookshelf, obviously. (Also there was a contingent of presumably gay corgis.)

The excellent book Pride Puppy, which gives Justice Alito nightmares

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