On Tuesday, June 30, in a complete distortion of federal laws requiring equal opportunities in education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to further the Trump administration’s political agenda to persecute, ostracize and erase transgender students. This decision allowing states to ban transgender athletes from girls’ sports, is not about Title IX or equal opportunities for girls. In fact, it is the exact opposite.

To enforce these bans, someone has to decide which girls look female enough to compete. Schools and athletic associations must actively investigate students who don’t fit a sufficiently feminine profile.

We have watched this machinery run before. It is the same machinery that told women they were too aggressive for the boardroom, too strong for the field, too mannish for the ballot box. It has always been used to shrink what women and girls are allowed to be.

Women’s rights and trans rights are not competing causes. They never were. They share a common enemy: the rigid gender hierarchy that has always used “protection” as a cover story for control.

None of us are free until the category of “woman” is big enough to hold all of us.