Supreme Court upholds state bans on transgender athletes in women's sports, 6-3

Summary

The US Supreme Court voted 6-3 on June 30 to uphold state laws barring transgender students from competing on girls' and women's sports teams, resolving consolidated challenges to statutes in West Virginia and Idaho. Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the conservative majority, concluding that the laws do not violate the 14th Amendment's equal-protection clause or Title IX's ban on sex discrimination in education. The two named plaintiffs, Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old West Virginia high school student, and Lindsay Hecox, a 25-year-old Idaho college runner, had each received hormone therapy and argued the bans excluded them based on gender identity rather than any athletic advantage. The ruling settles active litigation in roughly 25 additional states that passed similar statutes in 2021-2024.

Why it matters

The decision hands Republican-led state legislatures a constitutional green light that had been withheld while the cases wound through lower courts, and forecloses a generation of Title IX litigation. It also adds to the court's end-of-term run of rulings expanding state authority and executive power, drawing a sharper line between the conservative supermajority and the three liberal justices.