--- title: "Supreme Court Rules States May Bar Transgender Athletes From Girls' and Women's Sports" description: "The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Monday that state laws barring transgender girls and women from female sports teams do not violate the Constitution, and held unanimously that they do not violate the federal civil-rights law Title IX — resolving two closely watched cases at the center of a divisive national debate." category: "U.S." category_url: https://herald.la/category/us author: "Mei-Lin Tang" published: 2026-06-30T15:48:00.000Z updated: 2026-06-30T15:48:00.000Z canonical: https://herald.la/article/supreme-court-rules-states-may-bar-transgender-athletes-from-girls-and-women-s-s tags: ["Supreme Court", "transgender", "sports", "Title IX", "Equal Protection", "Idaho", "West Virginia"] --- # Supreme Court Rules States May Bar Transgender Athletes From Girls' and Women's Sports The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Monday that state laws barring transgender girls and women from female sports teams do not violate the Constitution, and held unanimously that they do not violate the federal civil-rights law Title IX — resolving two closely watched cases at the center of a divisive national debate. The Supreme Court has settled, for now, one of the most contested questions in American sports and civil-rights law. ## The ruling Deciding two cases together — *West Virginia v. B.P.J.* and *Little v. Hecox* — the Court upheld West Virginia's and Idaho's laws requiring student athletes to compete on teams matching their sex assigned at birth, [SCOTUSblog reported](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-states-can-exclude-transgender-athletes-from-girls-and-womens-sports-teams/). Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. On Title IX, the 1972 law banning sex discrimination in education, the justices were unanimous that it does not bar states from setting eligibility rules based on biological sex for women's teams. The 6-3 split came on the constitutional question — whether the laws violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause — with the majority holding they do not. "The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women's and girls' sports throughout America," Kavanaugh wrote. ## The dissent Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented on the equal-protection question. She argued the bans are categorical — barring transgender girls even from practicing with a team — and leave no room for a court to weigh an individual athlete's circumstances. "The facts do not matter, even though the consequences are serious," she wrote, contending the laws single out a vulnerable group for exclusion. Jackson wrote separately as well, rooting her analysis in the history of the post-Civil War amendments. ## The athletes at the center The West Virginia case involved Becky Pepper-Jackson, a teenager who has taken puberty-blocking medication and estrogen and competed in girls' cross-country and track-and-field events. The Idaho case involved Lindsay Hecox, a college student barred from trying out for women's running teams at Boise State; she had asked to withdraw from the case, but the state pressed on. By one estimate from the Williams Institute at UCLA, roughly 122,000 transgender teenagers take part in high-school sports nationwide. ## Reaction from supporters Backers of the laws called the decision a landmark for women's athletics. West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey described it as "one of the most important victories for women's athletics since the enactment of Title IX itself," and President Trump called it a "BIG WIN." Payton McNabb, a former college volleyball player who has campaigned for such laws, said, "There's been myself and so many women in this fight ... even when no one was listening to us." Supporters argue the measures protect competitive fairness and safety in girls' and women's sports. ## Reaction from opponents Advocates for transgender athletes called the ruling deeply harmful. "This ruling is deeply harmful for transgender women and girls who only asked for the ability to participate in sports with their peers," said Sasha Buchert of [Lambda Legal](https://lambdalegal.org/newsroom/bpj_wv_20260630_attorneys-for-trans-student-athletes-respond-to-scotus-ruling-bpj-hecox/), which represented the plaintiffs. Joshua Block of the ACLU called it "a heartbreaking ruling for our clients and transgender girls like them who've asked for nothing more than the same opportunities afforded to their peers." Opponents say the laws are discriminatory and expose transgender youth to scrutiny and harm. ## What it means The decision effectively validates similar measures already on the books in more than two dozen states, [NBC News reported](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-upholds-state-transgender-sports-bans-rcna261384). It does not address transgender boys or men in male sports, nor does it directly govern private athletic associations, some of which have separately moved to restrict transgender women's participation. With the constitutional question now answered at the highest level, the fight is likely to shift to statehouses, school districts and the governing bodies of individual sports. ## Sources - [Court rules states can exclude transgender athletes from girls' and women's sports teams](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-states-can-exclude-transgender-athletes-from-girls-and-womens-sports-teams/) - [Supreme Court upholds state bans on transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/supreme-court/supreme-court-upholds-state-transgender-sports-bans-rcna261384) - [Attorneys for transgender student-athletes respond to the ruling](https://lambdalegal.org/newsroom/bpj_wv_20260630_attorneys-for-trans-student-athletes-respond-to-scotus-ruling-bpj-hecox/)