Supreme Court appears likely to uphold bans on transgender girls in girls' sports
Most justices were skeptical the state bans discriminate based on sex.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared ready to uphold two state laws prohibiting transgender girls from competing on girls' sports teams, as a majority of conservative justices voiced skepticism of arguments that excluding the athletes would violate Title IX and the U.S. Constitution.
"There's strong assertions of equality interests on both sides," observed Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a father and coach of two athlete daughters. But "given that half the states are allowing ... transgender girls and women to participate and about half are not, why would we at this point ... jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country while there’s still uncertainty and debate?"
The pair of cases, marking the first time the court was wading into the culture wars debate, involve laws from Idaho and West Virginia, both of which were blocked by lower courts on grounds they discriminated on the basis of sex in violation of federal law and the Constitution's equal protection clause. Twenty-seven other states have similar measures.
Twenty-one states allow transgender girls to compete on girls' sports teams, including California and New York, which have laws explicitly protecting the right of trans girls to play. The court was not considering whether those policies must be struck down.
"Do you say that’s up to each state to decide, and that the Constitution gives discretion to the state whether to allow it or not to allow it?" Kavanaugh asked Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst.
They can’t "impose our policy on other states in this matter," Hurst said.
Over more than three hours of arguments, Kavanaugh and the other members of the conservative majority seemed content to embrace a state-by-state approach, suggesting that Title IX’s prohibition on discrimination "on the basis of sex" did not include gender identity by definition, and that transgender people do not constitute a "discrete" class of people worthy of heightened legal protection.
“The question here is, is a sex-based classification really a transgender classification?” Chief Justice John Roberts asked skeptically of ACLU attorney Josh Block. He responded that the court didn’t need to address the issue to decide the case.
Block and attorney Kathleen Hartnett, who were representing two transgender athletes challenging the state laws, argued that their clients, who take puberty-blocking medication and hormone treatments, are a unique subset of trans people who lack the testosterone levels that would give them an athletic advantage over cisgender peers.
"Having a larger frame but not having the muscle and testosterone to drive it could actually put [the trans athlete] in a worse position," said Hartnett.
The court’s three liberal justices seemed sympathetic to the plaintiffs and appeared to search for a path to a narrow ruling. Sticking closely to the facts surrounding Lindsay Hecox of Idaho and Becky Pepper-Jackson of West Virginia, several justices suggested it might make sense to send the case back to lower courts for further examination of scientific evidence and stave off a potentially sweeping ruling against trans teens.
This law "is treating someone who is transgender but who does not have, because of the medical interventions and the things that have been done, who does not have the same threat to physical competition and safety and all of the reasons that the state puts forward. That's actually a different class, says this individual," posited Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. "What’s wrong with that?"
There are an estimated 122,000 transgender high school athletes nationwide, according to the Williams Institute at UCLA Law School. That’s just over 1% of the more than 8 million American teens who compete in sports.
Justice Neil Gorsuch, who authored the landmark 2020 decision banning employment discrimination against transgender people on the basis of their gender identity, signaled empathy for the plaintiffs but suggested it might be too soon for the court to draw definitive lines on the issue.
"If there’s scientific uncertainty about whether puberty blockers and testosterone suppressants completely or mostly or some percentage of the time eliminate all competitive advantage, some competitive advantage," he said, "does the state have to show it eliminates advantage? … I’m struggling to understand."
"The categorical exclusion [of trans athletes] isn’t supported on any science," replied Hartnett.
Nodding to the intensity of public debate around the issue, conservative Justice Samuel Alito acknowledged what he described as the sincere concerns of those opposed to trans athletes.
"There are an awful lot of female athletes are strongly opposed to trans athletes in competition with them," Alito said. "Are they bigots? Are they deluded in thinking they are subject to unfair competition?"
"No your honor," replied Hartnett, who said the legal debate was simply focused on the impact of the law.
Sixty-nine percent of Americans say transgender girls should compete on boys' teams in school sports, according to a June 2025 Gallup survey.
"Some scenarios [in sports] are zero sum, but not everything involving sports is," argued Block, suggesting trans girls could at the very least be allowed to practice with a girls team. "This law sweeps so broadly that even win-wins are taken off the table."
Kavanaugh, a critical vote and one of the justices most frequently in the majority, seemed decidedly deferential to cisgender athletes and inclined to a cautious approach on the law.
"Obviously one of the great successes in America over last 50 years has been the growth of women and girls' sports," he said. "A variety of groups that study this issue think allowing transgender women and girls to participate will undermine or reverse that amazing success and create unfairness.
"For the individual girl who does not make the team, or who doesn’t get on the stand for the medal, or make all-league … there’s a harm there," said Kavanaugh. "And we can’t sweep that aside."
A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.
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