Washington — The Supreme Court on Tuesday is set to consider whether states can forbid transgender athletes from competing on girls' and women's sports teams, stepping into a high-stakes fight that has been simmering for years.
Twenty-seven states have enacted laws that prohibit transgender athletes from participating in girls' and women's sports. President Trump signed an executive order in February that directed his administration to strip federal funding from programs that allow transgender girls and women to compete on athletic teams that correspond with their gender identity.
On the heels of that directive, the NCAA updated its participation policy for transgender student-athletes, limiting competition in women's sports to only athletes assigned female at birth. Then, last July, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee effectively barred transgender women from competing on women's teams.
The Supreme Court is now poised to wade into the debate over transgender athletes' participation in girls' and women's sports when it convenes Tuesday to hear arguments in two cases involving restrictions from Idaho and West Virginia. The justices are confronted with whether the measures violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection and Title IX, the landmark 50-year-old law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities.
Two transgender athletes who challenged their states' laws, Lindsay Hecox and Becky Pepper-Jackson, argue the bans discriminate against them on the basis of sex and transgender status. The laws, they say, categorically exclude all transgender girls and women from school sports altogether, since they're barred from joining the teams that match their gender identity and cannot compete on boys' or men's teams because it would be inconsistent with their gender identity.
"I play for my school for the same reason other kids on my track team do — to make friends, have fun, and challenge myself through practice and teamwork," Pepper-Jackson said in a video statement. "And all I've ever wanted was the same opportunities as my peers."
Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court, in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026.
Jose Luis Magana / AP
But the states argue that their laws do not discriminate based on transgender status, and instead draw permissible distinctions between the sexes. West Virginia and Idaho officials say their bans' sex-based classifications are allowed because they are substantially related to their interest in fair and safe athletic opportunities for women and girls.
"Every time a male athlete runs as a female, a roster spot is lost to a female. It means it's given to a male. And that's unfair," Madison Kenyon, who ran collegiate track and cross-country and competed against a transgender woman, told CBS News chief legal correspondent Jan Crawford.
Kenyon continued: "Those opportunities to compete, to have a scholarship, to gain an education for women, were almost unheard of 50 years ago. Title IX was created to give women equal opportunity, equal spots in sports as men. And when men compete as women, it defeats the purpose of that. It gets rid of our equal opportunity and takes away our ability to get a scholarship and to compete and to get an education. And I experienced that."
Idaho's first-in-the-nation law
Idaho was the first state to enact a law banning transgender athletes from competing on girls' and women's athletic teams. Called the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, the measure requires public school and collegiate sports teams to be designated "based on biological sex," and states that athletic teams designated for females, women or girls "shall not be open to students of the male sex."
If a student's sex is disputed, the law requires the athlete to provide a health examination and consent form that verifies their biological sex at birth.
Hecox, a transgender woman who wanted to compete on the women's track and cross-country teams at Boise State University, filed a lawsuit challenging Idaho's law. She argued the measure was unconstitutional and violated Title IX. Hecox, who receives hormone therapy, tried out for the university's track and cross-country teams but did not make them. She instead participated in women's club soccer and running.
Defending the law are Idaho's attorney general and two athletes, Kenyon and Mary Kate Marshall, who competed on the women's track and cross-country teams at Idaho State University. They placed behind a transgender student-athlete in various events in 2019 and early 2020.
"Stepping on the line, standing next to a male when we're about to race — it's unfair," Marshall told Crawford. "I don't know how much — they don't have to put in as much work as I do because of the clear advantages that they have."
U.S. District Judge David C. Nye blocked enforcement of the ban in 2020, finding that it "discriminates between cisgender athletes, who may compete on athletic teams consistent with their gender identity, and transgender women athletes, who may not compete on athletic teams consistent with their gender identity." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit affirmed that decision and concluded that Idaho's ban is likely unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court agreed in July to take up the challenge to Idaho's law, as well as West Virginia's. But since then, Hecox, now 25, has sought to have the case dismissed as moot.
Citing "significant challenges that have affected her both personally and academically," as well as "negative public scrutiny from certain quarters" because of the lawsuit, Hecox's lawyers wrote in a filing that she decided to refrain from playing any women's sports at Boise State University or in Idaho, and would not participate in any school-sponsored athletics covered by Idaho's ban.
The Supreme Court is set to discuss at oral arguments whether to dismiss her case.
West Virginia's law
West Virginia lawmakers enacted the state's ban, called the Save Women's Sports Act, in 2021. Like Idaho's measure, the law requires athletic teams to be designated "based on biological sex," and states that "athletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill or the activity involved is a contact sport."
Before the law took effect, Pepper-Jackson wanted to compete on the girls' cross-country and track teams, and sued to block enforcement of the ban against her, arguing it violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old transgender girl, began socially transitioning in third grade and has taken puberty-delaying medication and hormone therapy. She is now a sophomore in high school.
In 2023, a U.S. district court upheld the law on both equal protection and Title IX grounds, finding West Virginia's classification based on biological sex is substantially related to its interest in providing equal athletic opportunities for females.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and the Supreme Court blocked West Virginia officials from enforcing the ban against Pepper-Jackson while proceedings continued, with Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas in dissent. The 4th Circuit then divided 2-1 in finding that the law violates Title IX because it discriminates based on gender identity, which it said is discrimination on the basis of sex.
The legal battle over transgender athletes
Schools have had sex-separated school sports teams for decades, but Republican-led states began enacting their recent restrictions as a growing number of instances of transgender athletes competing in girls' and women's sporting events came to light.
One openly transgender U.S. athlete competed at the 2024 Olympics in Paris, middle-distance runner Nikki Hiltz, who uses they/them pronouns and was assigned female at birth. NCAA President Charlie Baker told a Senate panel in December 2024 that he was aware of fewer than 10 transgender athletes who were among the 510,000 student-athletes governed by the association.
It's unclear how many transgender athletes are covered by bans in the 27 states that restrict participation in girls' and women's sports. The Williams Institute at UCLA Law School estimates that up to 122,000 transgender athletes could be participating in high school athletics.
Pepper-Jackson is the only openly transgender student-athlete in West Virginia, her lawyers say.
But dozens of female athletes competing at the high school and collegiate level told the Supreme Court in filings about their experiences competing against transgender athletes on basketball and volleyball courts, at track meets and in swimming pools.
"There's quite an unfair advantage that males have on females. And when they compete against women, it ruins the integrity of our sports," Kenyon said. "Running is a mental sport. And when you step on the line and you're racing a male athlete, the race hasn't even started, but it feels like the outcome has already been decided."
And Pepper-Jackson's participation in girls' sports in West Virginia has had reverberations, state officials say. They estimate that she displaced at least 400 female athletes in standings in track-and-field events in the spring 2025 season, and she placed third in discus and eighth in shot put at a May state championship meet.
"In an athletic regime where women are supposed to have the ability to compete fairly against other females, when you put a male in that mix, it's not fair," said Jonathan Bursch, a lawyer with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative judicial group that is co-counsel to the states. "That's why we have girls' sports. And you can't erase those physical differences, even with puberty blockers."
In defending the bans, the Alliance Defending Freedom and Idaho officials argue in filings that sex is biological and immutable, and causes the differences between males and females. They say the sports-participation laws are motivated by those physical and physiological differences, and classify based on sex to account for those distinctions.
"While these cases are simply about upholding these 27 state laws, it's really about restoring common sense, fairness and safety in sports and beyond based on biological reality," Bursch told CBS News.
In a filing with the Supreme Court, West Virginia Solicitor General Michael Williams and state officials said the 4th Circuit's decision requires states to treat sex and gender identity as synonymous when it comes to sports.
"Sex affects athletic performance; gender identity does not," West Virginia lawyers wrote. "If the court below were right, then Title IX's role in preserving girls' sports opportunities would end."
Meanwhile, Hecox's lawyers first argue her case should be dismissed because she has stopped playing any sports covered by the ban. Lawyers for the two athletes also refute that Idaho and West Virginia's laws are substantially related to their interests in promoting equality and safety in female athletics. Hecox and Pepper-Jackson have no athletic advantage over competitors because of the medical treatments they've received, they say.
"The statutory text, history, and purpose lead to the inescapable conclusion that the Act intentionally treats transgender women and girls differently — and worse — by categorically barring them from playing women's and girls' sports," Hecox's lawyers wrote in a filing.
In West Virginia's case, Pepper-Jackson's legal team says in court papers that Title IX does not authorize the "wholesale exclusion" of transgender girls from athletics. They argue the state's restriction subjects Pepper-Jackson to discrimination because it denies her equal access to athletics.
"The question before the court is straightforward: Does the law permit West Virginia to categorically exclude transgender students from participating in school sports consistent with their gender identity? And the answer is no," Sasha Buchert, director of the Transgender & Nonbinary Rights Project at Lambda Legal, told reporters. "These young people deserve the same opportunities, the same dignity and the same chance to grow through sports that we afford to all students."
The Trump administration is backing West Virginia and Idaho in the cases. In a friend-of-the-court brief, Solicitor General D. John Sauer said the practice of sex-separated sports is justified for transgender athletes because physiological differences between males and females are unrelated to gender identity and are not eliminated by medical interventions like puberty blockers or hormones.
"In short, the laws of West Virginia and Idaho place trans-identifying athletes on sports teams on the same valid, biology-based terms as everyone else," Sauer wrote. "That is the definition of equal treatment. It is not gender-identity discrimination at all, much less sex discrimination."
Transgender rights at the Supreme Court
The pair of disputes over transgender athletes' participation in girls' and women's sports are the latest involving LGBTQ rights that have landed before the Supreme Court.
In 2020, the justices divided 6-3 to expand protections from workplace discrimination under Title VII to transgender and gay employees, with Justice Neil Gorsuch authoring the majority opinion. Lawyers for Pepper-Jackson argue that the court's reasoning in that case should extend to Title IX, which uses similar language.
"Just as discriminating against a transgender person in employment is sex discrimination under Title VII, it's also sex discrimination under Title IX, and when Becky is prevented from being on teams with other girls like her, she is subjected to discrimination that effectively excludes her from participating in the school's educational programs," Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU's LGBT & HIV Project, told reporters. Block will be arguing on behalf of Pepper-Jackson before the Supreme Court.
But Bursch, of the Alliance Defending Freedom, said that under Title VII, sex isn't supposed to be a factor in whether a person is hired, fired, promoted or disciplined. In the context of Title IX, though, sex has to be considered, otherwise there wouldn't be male and female sports teams, he said.
"When you're talking about a statute that requires consideration of sex, then all of a sudden, sex discrimination means something very different than it does in Title VII," he said. "And if the court were to adopt the Bostock reasoning in Title IX, it would completely destroy male and female sports teams."
Most recently, in its last term, the Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law barring medical interventions for minors experiencing gender dysphoria. The high court found that the law does not rely on sex-based classifications, but instead draws lines based on medical use and age.
The Supreme Court has also allowed Mr. Trump to temporarily enforce policies banning transgender people from serving in the military and requiring passports to reflect the holder's biological sex at birth. Both cases landed before the high court in their early stages, and the Supreme Court has not yet been asked to decide the legal merits.
