The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of laws in Idaho and West Virginia that ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s sports teams at public schools and universities.
The court issued a 6-3 ruling on Tuesday in Washington, reversing lower court ruling that had sided with transgender students.
The ruling went against two transgender students, Lindsey Hercox and Becky Pepper-Jackson, who challenged laws in Idaho and West Virginia, respectively. Hercox and Pepper-Jackson challenged the bans as violating the U.S. Constitution and a federal anti-discrimination law.
The court announced it would review the cases in July 2025. Tuesday marks the end of the court’s current term, which began in October.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the court’s decision, which concluded that the laws don’t violate either the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which requires that the law apply evenly to everyone, or Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in education.
“The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America,” Kavanaugh wrote, according to NBC News.
The Idaho and West Virginia laws designate sports teams at public schools according to biological sex and bar “students of the male sex” from female teams.
Although the ruling only directly concerns Idaho and West Virginia, it will likely affect 25 other states with similar bans, according to NBC News. You can see which states have similar laws in the map seen here.
Last year, the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s ban on trans youth from accessing puberty blockers and hormone therapy in a 6-3 vote.
Hercox, a 25-year-old college student, initially challenged a law passed in Idaho in 2020 that prohibited transgender women and girls from playing on women’s sports teams in schools and colleges. Hercox tried out for the women’s track and cross-country teams in college without success and has since participated in running and club soccer.
Pepper-Jackson, now a 16-year-old high school sophomore, challenged a West Virginia state law barring transgender girls from participating in female sports when she was just 11 (along with her mother). Pepper-Jackson has taken puberty-blocking medication and estrogen and competed in girls’ cross-country, shot put and discus.
The issue of transgender participation in female sports became a hot-button cultural topic when Lia Thomas began competing for the women’s team in 2022. Donald Trump has also made a leading political issue during his campaign and second term as President.
Trump has signed multiple executive orders affecting transgender rights, including the “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports Act” earlier this year, which directs federal agencies to withhold funding from schools that allow transgender students to compete in girls’ sports.
I understand this thread is mostly dead, but I just want to just quickly address something. I myself am a leftist, but I do support this legislation. It does promote fairness. But, to everyone in here who’s saying things like “why is this a debate,” the reason there is a lot of pushback from the left is due to the hate and vitriol that this has spawned. While, scientifically, this is the right choice, it’s frankly not a hugely pertinent issue in the modern world. As others have pointed out, there are only around ten male to female athletes in NCAA sports at the moment. While it is true that they have an unfair advantage, this legislation has been used… Read more »
I also want to point out that, while it’s true that the supreme court can focus on more than one issue at once, you have to understand the frustration coming from people on the left when they see issues like the Ep files and insider trading not being investigated, along with other corruption going largely under the rug. I understand that not everyone here believes that these things are happening, but I want you to try to understand that many people believe rampant government corruption to be more important than preventing a few people from playing sports. Again, you don’t have to agree with that point of view, but just try to understand the frustration at hand
Thanks again.
Not the kind of leftist I’d want to align with.
I’m curious why? Would love to hear your thoughts
Can’t cut certain rights for trans folks out like this.
Because of how insular the swim community is, I’m certainly willing to discuss what “reasonable” regulations there should be on trans inclusion in elite sport. For instance, debating the ones Lia Thomas competed under vs the more restrictive ones they came up with immediately after, that sort of thing. Occasionally we’ve been able to have those sorts of discussions here, though it’s been a few years. Mostly, because of continued capitulation – the people that passed the ban we’re talking about in this post, they won’t ever find those “reasonable” regulations enough – they want to see trans people driven from public life completely.
Which brings us here,… Read more »
Wow. I find myself liking most of what you say here. Hell has frozen over.
Trans women are trans women. They’re not biological women. It’s okay to make that delineation.
“Biological women” is something made up in the last few years. It’s meaningless and used by people trying to other trans people
Last few years – Like since the beginning of creation!
Because he said it’s not a pertinent issue. Absolutely ridiculous.
Of course!!
(I said my thank yous above before I saw you.)
Yes! Thank you.
I don’t think this legislation promotes fairness, just from my perspective I don’t think the perceived harm suffered by Cisgender kids who would have to compete with Trans women is even close to equal to the harms trans kids feel when excluded from participating in athletics (in this case).
I also think that you do a great job outlining just why this feels like such an important hill to die on. If we had let pro-segregation protestors carry the day when Ruby Bridges walked into her elementary school, that would’ve been a real setback on the path to integration. Education is important. If kids can interact with their trans classmates in every way from the classroom to after-school practice, then… Read more »
You must be a man. It is a pertinent issue if you’re a woman. Glad that you feel that way though.
Hallelujah!!!!!!!
there are less than 10 transgender individuals among 500,000 NCAA athletes but it is the end of the world. Keeping them out and destroying their lives is cheap and effective bread and circus for the masses. How stupid and evil.
So you don’t care about biological women? That’s what you’re saying.
Fairness is not determined by headcount. Sports are zero-sum: even one male athlete can take a roster spot, starting position, medal, record, scholarship, or championship from a female athlete. As the Supreme Court explained, even “one or a few males” can place specific women and girls at a significant disadvantage.
Before Title IX, 3.6 million boys played high school sports compared with only 300,000 girls. The protected female category exists because simply letting everyone compete together did not create equality—it pushed females out. Defending that category is not “evil.” It is protecting the equal opportunities Title IX was created to provide.
Way to rewrite history. Title IX exists because education and as an extension athletics was viewed as primarily male, and women were at best an afterthought if not excluded entirely. There was no “letting everyone compete together” before the creation of women’s only classifications.
Ignoring your misgendering, sports, as something for kids, are objectively not zero-sum. Any specific competition may have winners and losers, but the whole idea of sport is supposed to transcend all that stuff anyways. You don’t get your kid into sports so they can win, or beat some other kids, you get them into sports to have fun and learn valuable lessons about teamwork and hard work.
Destroying their lives? Are we talking about murder now? Please! Nobody is saying they can’t participate in sports. They just need their own category and records, etc. Besides, you can’t have everything in life. When you make a choice, some possibilities are eliminated. This is life in the adult world.
I’m totally lost by the response of a certain faction of people who want to combat the legislation based off their opinion that there are not enough transgender individuals to act .
Shouldn’t laws be passed be based off whether they are righteous or not anyways? What is the correct number before legislation is appropriate? Why should we wait until more harm is done to act? If you can’t answer these questions, you should probably be attacking the law on merit and not off small sample size. I know, I know, the Supreme Court should be more worried about the price of eggs lol
10 trans athletes, but how many school shootings? What is the correct number before legislation is appropriate?
Maybe that certain faction is frustrated that this issue took priority over others?Other issues that most reasonable people deem to be much more significant societal problems.
Let’s look at some more numbers, shall we? IN the USA, thousands of children die every year from gun violence.(1400+ in 2024, 2500+ in 2023), Not worthy of legislation, right? No harm done. A few dozen – or not even – trans kids want to play sports in their gender preference. Oh lord, someone will be harmed – we’ve got to stop this now! Let’s go to the Supreme Court! Clearly, what is righteous is subjective, to say the least. And our country has priorities!
I hear you. I get what you are saying. There is no Trans Army descending from the hills, and there is much manufactured outrage around this issue from many with ulterior motives.
But at the end of the day, I, a Queer Friendly Liberal, cannot accept what I saw in women’s 800m track in recent times. (World Athletics vice NCAA but the point remains.) And many of my Queer friends understand this.
Trans women ARE women. But certain things are unfortunately off limits, due to biological advantages.
Why make up words like “cis” with regard to gender? There have always been just two. I went bank a few thousand years in history and that’s about it as to what I found. According to some, how could everyone have missed it for so many thousand years…
There are many reasons this is a bad take, but the most prominent of them is that you didn’t go back a few thousand years in history, because if you had, you would have found many examples of cultures that recognized more than two genders.
Hirjas in Hindu scripture have been recognized for thousands of years. Indigenous North Americans had “two spirit” people. The Bugis group in Indonesia recognizes five genders and have for hundreds of years. Romans often recognized eunuchs as a third gender. Certain denominations of Judaism identify more than two genders in the Talmud, though others reject it.
Certainly have an opinion, but don’t just make up the facts to support it.
BK,
I am lgbt, and would be treated dreadfully by the average Indian, Native American, or Indonesian. If the comment above is a ‘bad take,’ yours is naive and offensive, all in the interest of being correct. I have a Native American friend, he does not believe in the lgbt movement at all. TQ has caused this damage – average people think we are behind this madness. I have an Indian friend – have you forgotten that arranged marriages not to mention lavender marriages are still the norm there? As for Indonesia, you make that comment as if they’re doing what we’re doing. Are they taking young gay men and putting them on hormones – making them a patient for… Read more »
Nice
I am gay, and I swam in college. This is the right move, it’s not hateful to say the truth. Watch Paula Scanlon’s interview to get an idea of the kind of censorship we faced on this issue in college. And I am gay! What a sad world it is, full of censorship and misunderstanding. Anyone who swam knows there are fundamental differences.
Thank you!
Awful lot of concern and outrage over a handful of transgender individuals instead of the PDF’s out there in schools, businesses, churches, and the government… But hey, priorities, am i right?????
You know it’s possible for multiple issues to exist at once
And for the wrong ones to receive the bulk of attention and outrage
Swing and miss at the point but good try.
GOOD