Becky Pepper-Jackson attends the Lambda Legal Liberty Awards on June 8, 2023 in New York City. Her mother sued on her behalf to overturn West Virginia law that bans trans athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams in public schools and colleges. (Photo by Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Lambda Legal)
WASHINGTON — Two blockbuster cases before the U.S. Supreme Court could have far-reaching implications for transgender rights, even as the Trump administration rolled out a sweeping anti-trans agenda last year that covers everything from sports to military service.
The court will hear challenges to the laws on January 13 Idaho and West Virginia bans transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. In both cases, the issue is whether the laws violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.
The West Virginia case before the Supreme Court also questions whether the state’s law violates Title IX – a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits schools that receive federal funding from engaging in gender discrimination.
Lower court rulings have temporarily blocked states from implementing the bans to varying degrees, and Republican attorneys general in Idaho and West Virginia have asked the Supreme Court to intervene.
“We know we have an uphill battle, and our hope is certainly that we win,” Joshua Block, senior attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT and HIV Project, who will be arguing oral arguments in the West Virginia case, said at a Jan. 8 ACLU news conference.
“But we also hope that no matter what happens, this case is not successfully used as a tool to undermine the rights of transgender people more generally in areas far beyond just athletics.”
The outcome of oral arguments in a court dominated 6-3 by conservative justices will be closely watched. Nearly 30 states have laws banning trans students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity Movement promotion projectan independent think tank.
Idaho case
The judges will hear both cases in one day. First it will be Little v. hexox, challenging a 2020 Idaho law that categorically bans trans athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
Lindsay Hecox sued over the ban in 2020, just months before the law was set to take effect.
Although Hecox wanted to try out for the women’s track and field and cross country teams at Boise State University, Idaho law applied – that the first of its kind in the country – would have prevented her from doing so because she is transgender.
A federal court in Idaho blocked the law from taking effect later that year. A federal appeals court initially upheld the ruling in 2023, but later adjusted its scope in 2024 so that it applied only to Hecox and not other athletes.
Idaho appealed to the Supreme Court in July 2024.
Since then, Hecox has asked both an Idaho federal court and the Supreme Court to dismiss the case.
A Federal judge in Idaho In October, the court rejected that attempt, but the Supreme Court postponed the request until after oral argument – meaning the justices could still dismiss the case.
“The Supreme Court is trying to decide whether Idaho can preserve women’s sports based on biological sex or whether female must be redefined based on gender identity,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said at a Jan. 8 news conference before the hearing.
“I think Idaho is just trying to protect fairness, safety and equal protection for girls and women in sports,” Labrador said at the briefing with West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey, hosted by the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom.
West Virginia case
After the Idaho case, the justices will hear arguments West Virginia vs. BPJwhich focuses on a 2021 Mountain State law that also bans trans athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
McCuskey argued that his state’s law “supports and strengthens the original intent and continuing intent and purpose of Title IX.”
McCuskey said the law complies with the Equal Protection Clause because it “treats all biological men and all biological women equally” and “prohibits no one from participating in sports.”
Becky Pepper-Jackson, who was 11 at the time, wanted to train for the girls’ cross country team when she started middle school, but would have been prevented from doing so under West Virginia law because she is transgender.
Her mother sued on her behalf in 2021.
A federal appeals court barred West Virginia from enforcing the ban in 2024, prompting the state to ask the nation’s highest court to intervene.
The White House and Congress are focused on trans athletes
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has taken federal steps to ban trans athletes from participating in women’s sports teams based on their gender identity.
Trump signed an executive order In February 2025, such participation was banned and made law policy of the United States to “remove all funding from educational programs that deny women and girls fair sporting opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprivation of their privacy.”
The The NCAA immediately changed its policies to comply with the order and “limit competition in women’s sports to student-athletes who were assigned female-only at birth.”
In behind schedule 2024, before the policy change, NCAA President Charlie Baker told Congress He knew that of the more than half a million athletes in NCAA schools, fewer than 10 were transgender.
The GOP-led House of Representatives passed a measure in January 2025 that would bar transgender students from participating on female school sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
But Senate Democrats in March blocked an attempt in imposing such a ban and codifying Trump’s executive order.
In September, 48 Republican members of Congress argued the case Amicus briefly Supporting Idaho and West Virginia that “the lower courts’ interpretation, if allowed to stand, will undo the very promises Congress made to generations of young women and men in Title IX.”
On the other hand, 130 Democrats in Congress rallied behind the two transgender athletes in a November amicus brief, noting that “categorical bans that prohibit transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity cause significant harm to all children – especially girls.”
The group argued that such bans “do not meet the standards this court has established for assessing sex discrimination – whether under Title IX or under the Equal Protection Clause.”
Trump’s broader anti-trans agenda extends beyond exercise in the nearly year since he took office.
He signed executive orders providing: do it the “policy of the United States to recognize two genders, male and female”; restrict access gender-equitable care for children; and try to lock open Transgender Service Members by the US military.
“Textbook discrimination”
The Human Rights Campaignan LGBTQ+ advocacy group, has found that there has been “significant disinformation and misinformation about what the inclusion of transgender youth in sports entails” and that transgender student athletic participation “has not been an issue.”
In one opinion Ahead of the hearing, Cathryn Oakley, senior director of legal policy at HRC, said: “Every child, regardless of their background, race or gender, should have access to a quality education in which they can feel safe to learn and develop – and for many children this includes being on a school sports team.”
Oakley added: “Denying transgender children the opportunity to participate in school sports with their peers simply because of their identity is school discrimination – and unconstitutional.”
