Supreme Court Upholds State Bans on Transgender Athletes in Landmark 6-3 Ruling

A conservative court's latest ruling on trans rights

The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state laws barring transgender girls and women from competing on school athletic teams, delivering another defeat to LGBTQ rights advocates in a term dominated by socially conservative rulings.npr The court's six-member conservative majority, in an opinion authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, ruled 6–3 that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia do not violate either the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause or Title IX, the 1972 federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education.pbs Because at least 25 other states have enacted similar prohibitions, the decision's reach extends far beyond the two cases before the court.npr

The two athletes at the center of the cases

The ruling consolidated challenges brought by Lindsay Hecox, a 25-year-old college student who sought to try out for women's track and cross-country teams at Boise State University under Idaho's first-in-the-nation 2020 ban, and Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 16-year-old West Virginia high school sophomore who has taken puberty-blocking medication and estrogen and has publicly identified as a girl since age 8.pbs +1 Pepper-Jackson progressed from finishing last in middle school cross-country to winning the West Virginia state championship in the shot put — finishing two feet ahead of the second-place competitor — yet the state argued her birth sex gave her an unfair advantage.pbs Kavanaugh wrote that the Constitution and Title IX "do not require an overhaul of women's and girls' sports throughout America," while adding that transgender girls who want to compete "warrant respect" and should not be "ostracized or vilified."npr

Title IX at the heart of the dispute

Both sides of the case staked competing claims under Title IX. State attorneys argued that since the law explicitly permits sex-segregated athletic teams, schools can define "female" by biological sex at birth.pbs Lawyers for the student-athletes countered that applying such a blanket rule to individuals who transitioned before puberty ignores individual medical circumstances and constitutes discrimination based on sex.npr The ruling left unresolved whether the same logic extends to club sports and recreational leagues, or to younger children who typically compete on mixed-gender teams — questions the court acknowledged would require further litigation.npr

A string of losses for transgender Americans

Tuesday's decision is the latest in a sustained run of adverse rulings for transgender people from the court's conservative supermajority. Last year, six justices upheld state laws banning gender-affirming care for minors; a separate decision allowed Trump administration policies barring transgender people from the military.pbs The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee had already imposed restrictions on transgender women in their respective competitions following a Trump executive order.pbs According to an October 2025 AP-NORC poll, about 60% of U.S. adults favored requiring transgender children to compete only on teams matching their birth sex, with roughly 20% opposed.pbs