Supreme Court upholds transgender athlete bans

The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states may bar transgender girls and women from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams, upholding laws in West Virginia and Idaho and potentially affecting similar restrictions across much of the country.

In a 6-3 decision, the court rejected challenges brought by Becky Pepper-Jackson, a transgender high school student in West Virginia, and Lindsay Hecox, a transgender college student in Idaho. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote the majority opinion, joined by the court’s five other conservative justices.

“Consistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the States may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females,” Kavanaugh wrote. “They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex.”

“The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America,” he added.

Kavanaugh wrote that transgender girls and women who want to play sports deserve respect and should not be “ostracized or vilified.” But the majority concluded that neither Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination in education, nor the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause prohibits states from setting eligibility rules for girls’ and women’s teams based on sex assigned at birth.

The three liberal justices dissented from the court’s Equal Protection ruling but agreed with the majority on Title IX, CBS News reported. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, according to Talking Points Memo. Jackson also filed her own opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

The cases, West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, focused on laws passed as states moved to restrict transgender participation in school sports. Idaho enacted the first such statewide ban in 2020, declaring that teams designated for females, women or girls “should not be open to students of the male sex.” West Virginia followed in 2021 with the Save Women’s Sports Act, which says gender is “based solely on the individual’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.”

Pepper-Jackson, now in high school, challenged West Virginia’s law after seeking to compete on girls’ cross-country and track teams. She began socially transitioning in third grade and has taken puberty-delaying medication and hormone therapy. NBC News reported that she has competed in girls’ cross-country, shot put and discus.

Her lawyers argued that the law targeted very few athletes and said she is the only transgender athlete in West Virginia. They also argued that, because of puberty-delaying treatment, Pepper-Jackson and other transgender girls like her do not have a biological athletic advantage over competitors assigned female at birth.

State officials countered that the rules draw permissible distinctions between the sexes and are substantially related to protecting girls’ and women’s sports. West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey told NPR that Pepper-Jackson had become “the third best shot-putter in the entire state” as a freshman and said, “Biological differences between men and women matter on the field.”

Hecox challenged Idaho’s law after seeking to compete on the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University. She has received testosterone suppression and estrogen treatments. NBC News reported that she tried out for the teams without success and later participated in running and club soccer. The Guardian reported that Hecox later sought to dismiss her case, saying she was no longer pursuing women’s sports and feared harassment, but the court heard it.

Lower courts had ruled in favor of both students before Tuesday’s decision. A federal appeals court ruled in 2024 that West Virginia’s law unlawfully discriminated against Pepper-Jackson on the basis of sex, while another appeals court found Idaho’s ban likely unconstitutional.

The ruling comes amid broader legal and policy fights over transgender rights. The court last term upheld a Tennessee law restricting certain medical treatments for minors experiencing gender dysphoria, and it previously allowed Trump administration policies barring transgender people from the military and preventing them from including their gender identity on passports. In 2020, however, the court ruled that Title VII’s workplace protections cover sexual orientation and transgender status.

President Donald Trump signed an executive order last year titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” and his administration sided with West Virginia and Idaho at the Supreme Court. The NCAA, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee have also updated eligibility policies restricting transgender athletes in women’s categories.