Washington — The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states may bar transgender athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams, marking another significant blow to transgender rights in the United States.
The decision came in two major cases that drew national attention throughout the court’s term. In its rulings, the justices upheld laws in West Virginia and Idaho that limit transgender athletes’ participation in school sports. The cases are known as West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox.
Writing for the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh said that both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause allow schools to determine eligibility for girls’ and women’s teams based on biological sex.
“Consistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the States may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females. They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex,” Kavanaugh wrote. “The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America.”
The court’s three liberal justices disagreed with the majority’s Equal Protection Clause analysis, but they joined the conservative justices in the court’s conclusion on Title IX.
The ruling effectively shields similar restrictions adopted in 27 states in recent years, many of them passed after widely publicized debates over transgender athletes competing in girls’ and women’s events. President Trump signed an executive order last year barring federally funded education programs from allowing transgender girls and women to compete on teams that match their gender identity.
Major sports governing bodies have moved in a similar direction. The NCAA and the International Olympic Committee have revised their eligibility rules, restricting women’s competitions to athletes who were assigned female at birth.
The decision adds to a growing line of Supreme Court cases involving transgender rights. In its previous term, the court upheld a Tennessee law limiting access to certain medical treatments for minors with gender dysphoria, a policy mirrored by similar laws in about half of the states.
But in 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that a federal civil rights law known as Title VII prohibits an employer from firing a worker because of their sexual orientation or transgender status.
The West Virginia law
West Virginia enacted its law, called the Save Women’s Sports Act, in 2021. The measure requires athletic teams to be designated based on biological sex at birth and bars students assigned male at birth from playing in girls’ and women’s sports.
Before the law took effect, a transgender girl named Becky Pepper-Jackson, who wanted to compete on her school’s girls cross-country and track teams, sued to block its enforcement. Pepper-Jackson began socially transitioning in third grade and has taken puberty-delaying medication and hormone therapy. She is now in high school.
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A U.S. district court upheld West Virginia’s law in 2023, but a federal appellate court in 2024 ruled that the measure unlawfully discriminates against Pepper-Jackson on the basis of sex.
At issue in the case was whether Title IX or the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause prevented a state from forbidding transgender girls and women from playing on the athletic teams that match their gender identity.
Lawyers for Pepper-Jackson had argued that the bans targeted only a small number of athletes — their client is the only transgender athlete in West Virginia, they said. Additionally, because of puberty-delaying medical treatment, Pepper-Jackson and other transgender girls like her do not have any biological athletic advantage over competitors designated female at birth, her lawyers said.
But state officials said the bans draw permissible distinctions between the sexes, classifications that are substantially related to their interest in protecting girls’ and women’s sports.
Title IX was enacted more than 50 years ago and prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. Two years after its passage, regulations were adopted to allow schools to operate sex-separated athletic teams, as well as separate locker rooms, restrooms and showers. Schools, though, must provide “equal athletic opportunity” for members of both sexes.
The Idaho law
The Supreme Court also weighed a challenge to a law from Idaho, which was the first state to forbid transgender athletes from participating in girls’ and women’s sports.
Lindsay Hecox filed her lawsuit challenging Idaho’s law after seeking to compete on the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University and argued that the state’s ban was unconstitutional and a violation of Title IX. A federal appeals court ruled in 2024 that Idaho’s ban is likely unconstitutional.
