Supreme Court seems likely to uphold state bans on transgender athletes
in girls and women's sports
[January 14, 2026]
By MARK SHERMAN
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared ready to deal
another setback to transgender people and uphold state laws barring
transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams.
The court's conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against
transgender Americans in the past year, signaled during more than three
hours of arguments it would rule the state bans don't violate either the
Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex
discrimination in education.
More than two dozen Republican-led states have adopted bans on female
transgender athletes. Lower courts had ruled for the transgender
athletes who challenged laws in Idaho and West Virginia.
The legal fight is playing out against the backdrop of a broad effort by
President Donald Trump to target transgender Americans, beginning on the
first day of his second term and including the ouster of transgender
people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and
determined at birth.
The justices are evaluating claims of sex discrimination lodged by
transgender people versus the need for fair competition for women and
girls, the main argument made by the states.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who coached his daughters in girls basketball,
seemed concerned about a ruling that might undo the effects of Title IX,
which has produced dramatic growth in girls and women's sports.
Kavanaugh called Title IX an “amazing” and “inspiring” success.
Some girls and women might lose a medal in a competition with
transgender athletes, which Kavanaugh called a harm “we can’t sweep
aside.”
The three liberal justices seemed focused on trying to marshal a court
majority in support of a narrow ruling that would allow the individual
transgender athletes involved in the cases to prevail.
A ruling for West Virginia and Idaho would effectively apply to the
other two dozen Republican-led states with similar laws.
But the justices soon might be asked to decide about the laws in an
additional roughly two dozen states, led by Democrats, that allow
transgender athletes to compete on the teams that match their gender
identity.
The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts by the Trump
administration and others seeking to bar transgender athletes in states
that have continued to allow them to compete.
The transgender athletes' cases
In the Idaho case, Lindsay Hecox, 25, sued over the state's
first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women's track
and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. She didn’t
make either squad because “she was too slow,” her lawyer, Kathleen
Hartnett, told the court Tuesday, but she competed in club-level soccer
and running.
Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, was in the
courtroom Tuesday. She has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has
publicly identified as a girl since age 8 and has been issued a West
Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female. She is the only
transgender person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West
Virginia.
Pepper-Jackson has progressed from a back-of-the-pack cross-country
runner in middle school to a statewide third-place finish in the discus
in just her first year of high school.
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Protesters wave transgender pride flags outside the Supreme Court as
it hears arguments over state laws barring transgender girls and
women from playing on school athletic teams, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026,
in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
Prominent women in sports have weighed in on both sides. Tennis
champion Martina Navratilova, swimmers Summer Sanders and Donna de
Varona and beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh-Jennings are
supporting the state bans. Soccer stars Megan Rapinoe and Becky
Sauerbrunn and basketball players Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart back
the transgender athletes.
In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled LGBTQ people are protected by a
landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination
in the workplace, finding that “sex plays an unmistakable role” in
employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and
behavior they otherwise tolerate.
But last year, the six conservative justices declined to apply the
same sort of analysis when they upheld state bans on
gender-affirming care for transgender minors.
Chief Justice John Roberts signaled Tuesday he sees differences
between the 2020 case, in which he supported the claims of
discrimination, and the current dispute.
The states supporting the prohibitions on transgender athletes argue
there is no reason to extend the ruling barring workplace
discrimination to Title IX.
Idaho's law, state Solicitor General Alan Hurst, said, is “necessary
for fair competition because, where sports are concerned, men and
women are obviously not the same.”
Lawyers for Pepper-Jackson argue that such distinctions generally
make sense, but that their client has none of those advantages
because of the unique circumstances of her early transition. In
Hecox's case, her lawyers want the court to dismiss the case because
she has forsworn trying to play on women's teams.
NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress in 2024 that he was aware
of only 10 transgender athletes out of more than a half-million
students on college teams. But despite the small numbers, the issue
has taken on outsize importance.
Baker's NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned
transgender women from women’s sports after Trump, a Republican,
signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.
The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated
Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in
October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or
“somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to
only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned
at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10
were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not
have an opinion.
About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17,
or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the
Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
A decision is expected by early summer.
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