Dozens of states, groups ask Supreme Court to hear ‘two genders’ T-shirt case

Freedom of speech is on the table as the fight over gender accelerates.

The U.S. Supreme Court could decide this month whether to hear an appeal filed on behalf of a Massachusetts boy who was prohibited from wearing a shirt declaring “There are only two genders” to school.

The controversy, and two losses in U.S. District Court, all happened before Donald Trump was elected president last year. Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order his first day back in office stating the same message as the shirt and ordering the federal government to only recognize two genders. 

Now 18 states and multiple free speech advocates have joined the case, asking the high court to hear it, according to Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which is representing the boy. 

“Students don’t lose their free speech rights the moment they walk into a school building,” said David Cortman, ADF senior counsel and vice president of U.S. litigation, in a release. “This case isn’t about T-shirts; it’s about a public school telling a middle-schooler that he isn’t allowed to express a view that differs from their own. 

The case stems from a March 2023 incident when Liam Morrison, then 12, was told by his Middleborough, Massachusetts, public school to remove the shirt or go home. He left school that day rather than remove it because he believed in the shirt’s message. 

A few months later he wore the same shirt but with a sign that read “censored” over the words “only two,” but was again told the shirt was not appropriate because the school’s dress code prohibits clothing depicting hate speech or imagery targeting groups based on gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity. 

Judges in the initial case and the appeal found that Liam’s speech interfered with the “rights of others,” and that the school was within its authority to order him to remove it so that transgender students can “attend school without being confronted by messages attacking their identities.” 

But Cortman of ADF says the school is engaging in unfair treatment because it “actively promotes its view about gender through posters and ‘Pride’ events, and it encourages students to wear clothing with messages on the same topic—so long as that clothing expresses the school’s preferred views on the subject. 

“Our legal system is built on the truth that the government cannot silence any speaker just because it disapproves of what they say. We appreciate the many states and organizations that have joined us in urging the Supreme Court to take this critical free speech case.” 

The Court, which hears only about 100-150 of the 7,000 cases it receives annually, could decide by the end of this month whether to take the appeal, USA Today reported.