A ruling for the states would effectively validate similar laws in more than two dozen Republican-led states and could influence separate legal efforts by the Trump administration and others seeking to bar transgender athletes in the roughly two dozen states led by Democrats that currently allow athletes to compete based on gender identity.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority appeared ready Tuesday to uphold state laws barring transgender girls and women from competing on school athletic teams, signaling during more than three hours of oral arguments that such bans do not violate either the Constitution or Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in education.

A ruling for the states would effectively validate similar bans in more than two dozen Republican-led states. The outcome could also influence separate legal efforts by the Trump administration and others seeking to bar transgender athletes in the roughly two dozen states led by Democrats that currently allow athletes to compete based on gender identity. A decision is expected by early summer.

The Cases

The court heard arguments in two cases: one challenging Idaho’s law and one challenging West Virginia’s.

In Idaho, Lindsay Hecox, 25, sued for the chance to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University. She did not make either squad because “she was too slow,” her lawyer, Kathleen Hartnett, told the court Tuesday, but she has competed in club-level soccer and running. Hecox’s lawyers asked the court to dismiss the case because she has since forsworn trying to compete on women’s teams.

In West Virginia, Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, was present in the courtroom Tuesday. Pepper-Jackson 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, according to the Associated Press. She is the only transgender person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia. Pepper-Jackson progressed from a back-of-the-pack cross-country runner in middle school to a statewide third-place finish in the discus in her first year of high school.

Her lawyers argued that general distinctions between male and female athletic capability make sense, but that their client has none of those advantages because of the unique circumstances of her early transition.

Lower courts had ruled for the transgender athletes in both states before the Supreme Court agreed to take up the cases.

The Justices

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has coached his daughters in girls basketball, seemed concerned about a ruling that might undo the effects of Title IX. He called Title IX an “amazing” and “inspiring” success. Kavanaugh said the potential for some girls and women to lose a medal in competition with transgender athletes was a harm “we can’t sweep aside.”

Chief Justice John Roberts signaled he sees differences between the current dispute and a 2020 ruling, in which he joined the majority in finding that LGBTQ people are protected by federal civil rights law barring workplace discrimination based on sex. The states supporting the prohibitions argue there is no reason to extend that workplace ruling to Title IX and school sports.

The three liberal justices appeared focused on marshaling a narrow court majority that would allow the individual transgender athletes to prevail rather than producing a broader ruling against the bans.

The legal fight is playing out against a broad effort by President Donald Trump to target transgender Americans, which began on the first day of his second term and has included removing transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Idaho’s state Solicitor General Alan Hurst argued the law “is necessary for fair competition because, where sports are concerned, men and women are obviously not the same.”

The six conservative justices declined last year to apply the same discrimination analysis from the 2020 workplace ruling when they upheld state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

Scale of the Issue

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 players Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn and basketball players Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart back the transgender athletes.

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. Despite the small numbers, the issue has taken on outsize importance in national politics. After President Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring transgender athletes’ participation, the NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women’s sports.

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 compete only on sports teams matching the sex they were assigned at birth. About 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed, and about one-quarter had no opinion.

About 2.1 million adults — 0.8% of the adult population — and 724,000 people age 13 to 17 — 3.3% of that age group — identify as transgender in the United States, according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.