US Supreme Court upholds state bans on transgender athletes in Girls’ sports

The Supreme Court of the United States on Tuesday upheld state laws barring transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s school sports, handing a significant victory to conservative lawmakers in one of the country’s most contentious culture-war debates.

The ruling allows Idaho, West Virginia and more than two dozen other Republican-led states to enforce laws requiring students to compete in public school and college sports based on their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender identity.

The decision marks the latest indication of the conservative-majority court’s willingness to back state governments on transgender-related policies, following its ruling last year that upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors.

The legal challenge was brought by transgender students, who argued that the bans violate the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution as well as Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in education.

Supporters of the restrictions argued that the laws are necessary to ensure fair competition and protect athletic opportunities for girls and women.

Opponents, however, maintained that the measures unfairly target a small and vulnerable group of students, excluding them from school sports and turning children’s participation in athletics into a political issue.

The Idaho case centred on the state’s 2020 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which was challenged by a transgender athlete attending an Idaho university after lower courts ruled the law unconstitutional.

During arguments before the court in January, Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst argued that biological sex remains the determining factor in athletic competition because of differences in size, strength, muscle mass and lung capacity.

The West Virginia case involved a transgender teenage girl who was prevented under a 2021 state law from competing on her middle school’s girls’ track team.

Her legal team argued that transgender girls receiving testosterone-suppressing treatment do not possess an unfair competitive advantage and that the bans are driven more by politics than scientific evidence.

The ruling is expected to have wide-ranging implications for ongoing legal disputes over transgender participation in school sports across the United States.