Conservatives rallied around Justice Clarence Thomas on Tuesday as he wrote about the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that upheld state laws barring biological men from women’s sports.

Thomas followed the high court’s ruling to uphold state laws preventing transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports with a concurring opinion, saying, “Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are. Sex is an immutable ‘biological’ characteristic, see ante, at 10; it is binary; and ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ ‘boy’ and ‘girl,’ are the terms that correspond to adults and children of each sex.”

He added, “To use language to obscure reality to show ‘indifference regarding the truth’— is to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens ‘as equal[s].’”