The U.S. Supreme Court on October 29, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON – The US Supreme Court State laws banning transgender athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams went into effect Tuesday.
The Decision arises from challenges to bans in Idaho and West Virginia and represents a major setback for transgender rights across the country. The opinion also came as President Donald Trump’s administration pursued a broad anti-trans agenda that went beyond athletics.
The nation’s highest court ruled 6-3 that the bans in Idaho and West Virginia did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment – a key issue in both cases before the court.
The court agreed that Title IX, a landmark 1972 law that provided equal access to sports teams for male and female students, does not block bans like those in Idaho and West Virginia.
The majority opinion, written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, rejected the argument from Becky Pepper-Jackson, the transgender West Virginia woman in the case, that excluding transgender girls from girls’ teams conflicts with a 1974 amendment to Title IX that requires schools to set “reasonable” rules about participation in sports.
West Virginia’s law — similar to laws in 26 other states, the International Olympic Committee, the NCAA and other sports bodies — was at least reasonable, Kavanaugh said.
“Whether biological men should be allowed to participate on women’s and girls’ sports teams may be a contentious political question,” he wrote. “But the legal question for purposes of Title IX is whether West Virginia can limit women’s and girls’ sports teams to biological females. Textually and historically, West Virginia could do so.”
The Liberals would impose more control
The court’s three liberal justices agreed that Title IX did not prevent laws like those of West Virginia and Idaho.
However, they disagreed on the issue of equal protection and would have sent the case back to federal court in West Virginia for further fact-finding.
“By failing to take this modest step, the majority commits a grave error on two counts,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said in a dissenting opinion joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.
There is an “unresolved factual dispute” about whether transgender and cisgender girls “are in a similar situation,” Sotomayor said. And the majority cited “scientific uncertainty” to show too much deference to West Virginia. Both matters could have been resolved in lower courts, Sotomayor wrote.
“None of this is intended to suggest what the ultimate outcome of this litigation would have been or should have been if the majority had permitted the courts below to make the missing factual findings and if those courts had correctly applied a heightened level of review in light of those issues,” she said. “Rather, the point is that this court’s equal protection precedents require a very different approach.”
Idaho law
The Idaho case challenged the Gem State’s 2020 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 – the first of its kind in the country – was set to take effect.
Hecox wanted to try out for Boise State University’s women’s track and field and cross country teams, but Idaho law would have prevented her from doing so because she is transgender.
A federal court in Idaho blocked the law from taking effect later in 2020. A federal appeals court upheld the ruling in 2023, but later adjusted its scope in 2024 to apply only to Hecox and not other athletes.
In July 2024, Idaho appealed to the Supreme Court.
Hecox later asked both an Idaho federal court and the Supreme Court to throw out the case.
Although a federal judge in Idaho rejected that effort in October, the Supreme Court postponed the request until oral argument in January.
Republicans in Idaho are cheering
Several of Idaho’s top elected officials, all Republicans, issued statements praising Tuesday’s ruling.
Gov. Brad Little noted in an emailed statement that Idaho’s law is the first of its kind at the state level.
“We are a national leader in supporting generations of women and men who have fought hard to uphold the protections of Title IX and ensure the safety of girls and women,” he said. “I especially want to thank Idaho Legislator and Representative Barbara Ehardt for her leadership on this issue, which is of great importance to female athletes across Idaho and the country. This is a historic moment for common sense!”
Ehardt, who supported the Idaho ban in the state legislature, called the decision the end of an “amazing journey.”
“I said from the beginning that it would end up in the Supreme Court, and when it did, I had the privilege of sitting in that courtroom and listening,” Ehardt said. “I expected my legislation, and therefore Title IX, to be upheld as it should be. Opportunities for girls and women should never be confused with male sentiments!”
West Virginia Law
The West Virginia case involved a 2021 Mountain State law that also bans trans athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.
When Pepper-Jackson started middle school, she wanted to try out for the girls’ cross country team, but would have been prevented from doing so under state law because she is transgender.
In 2021, Pepper-Jackson’s mother sued on her behalf.
A federal appeals court barred the state from enforcing the ban in 2024, prompting West Virginia to ask the Supreme Court for an opinion.
Trump’s anti-trans agenda
Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Trump administration has attempted to ban trans athletes from participating in women’s sports teams based on their gender identity, including through a Implementing regulation Trump signed last year.
This executive order made it the 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 NCAA immediately changed his policy to comply with the order and “limit competition in women’s sports to student-athletes who were assigned female-only at birth.”
Trump has signed additional executive orders targeting transgender people, including orders like this do it The “policy of the United States to recognize two genders, male and female,” limits access gender-equitable care for children and aim to ban openly Transgender Service Members by the US military.
Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social to praise the justices.
“BIG VICTORY: The United States Supreme Court just ruled against men playing in women’s sports,” he wrote. “Wow! That eliminates this ridiculous situation!!!”
Different reaction
On Tuesday there were mighty reactions from MPs and other officials, both for and against the court’s decision.
Many who supported the decision, including Tim Walberg, chairman of the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee, offered a version of the statement that “women’s sports are for women.”
“Unfortunately, the radical gender ideology reinforced by policies advanced under the Biden-Harris administration has gutted Title IX’s protections. As a result, the very female athletes the law was intended to empower have been sidelined in the name of ‘equality,'” Walberg, a Michigan Republican, said in a statement.
He added that he was “grateful” to the justices and said Republicans on his committee “will always stand with female athletes.”
US Senator Shelley Moore Capito made a similar statement in a social media post
“Girls’ sports are for girls. That’s common sense,” the West Virginia Republican said. “I am grateful that SCOTUS complied with West Virginia’s law protecting female athletes.”
Critics of the ruling vowed to continue efforts to protect transgender people.
Celina Stewart, CEO of the League of Women Voters, said the decision “sends a dangerous message that some students are less worthy of dignity, opportunity and belonging.”
“Policies that intentionally target and exclude young people based on their identities weaken our democracy and violate the values of fairness and inclusion that define us as a nation,” she said. “The league stands in solidarity with all affected students and we continue to work to ensure that equality becomes a living reality for everyone.”
U.S. Rep. Melanie Stansbury, a New Mexico Democrat and co-chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, said in a social media post that the decision was about “whether LGBTQ+ rights are civil rights protected by federal law.”
“The answer is YES – and we will continue to fight until it is clear that this is the law of the land!” she added.
And leaders in blue states that don’t have laws like the one confirmed Tuesday said they wouldn’t be affected.
“Today’s ruling, while predictable, represents another troubling infringement on personal freedoms by giving states a license to discriminate,” said Maine Attorney General Aaron Frey said. “The court was clear that this decision has no impact on a state’s decision to include transgender athletes and therefore will not impact the Department of Justice’s case against Maine.”
