WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court upheld state-level bans on transgender competitors playing girls’ sports in Idaho and West Virginia in a landmark decision with major implications for more than half the country where similar policies are in place.
In a 6-3 opinion, in which the liberal justices concurred and dissented in part, the high court determined that neither state had violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by enacting the bans.
But the majority opinion also underscored the importance of treating transgender athletes with respect.
“Most of the biological female and transgender student-athletes who are involved in transgender sports disputes around the country are teenagers or in their early twenties,” Republican appointed Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion.
“Those student athletes want to play sports. Their desire to compete warrants respect. No student-athlete on either side of the issue, whether a biological female or transgender, deserves to be ostracized or vilified.”
Two transgender athletes waged similar challenges against the bans, arguing that they flouted equal protection rights under the 14th Amendment and statutory law prohibiting discrimination.
But during oral arguments, the high court’s Republican-appointed majority pointed to exemptions in statutory law and expressed doubts about overhauling policies to safeguard girls’ sports that 27 states have implemented.
The laws in question barred biological males from competing in women’s sports for public schools and colleges in the state. Lower courts had blocked both laws.
In Idaho, athlete Lindsay Hecox, an aspiring track and cross-country athlete for Boise State University, challenged the state’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.
Her case zeroed in on the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which holds that states can’t “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
In West Virginia, Becky Pepper-Jackson’s mother fought against the state’s Save Women’s Sports Act. Critically, Pepper-Jackson underwent transgender conversion during the third grade, prior to going through male puberty.
That case dealt with both the 14th Amendment and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which bars gender-based discrimination in education. That statute was adjusted under the “Javits Amendment” two years after its implementation to allow for biological sex-based categorizations in sports.
States that violate Title IX are required to lose federal funding. President Trump had used Title IX as the basis for his executive order last year, targeting states that allow transgender women to compete in women’s sports.
The decision in the cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B. P. J., marks the first time the Supreme Court has dealt with the fraught culture war issue of transgender competition in girls’ sports.
Last year, the Supreme Court allowed states to ban or restrict transgender surgeries or hormonal treatments for minors.
