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The U.S. Supreme Court seems likely to uphold state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams after arguments Tuesday on two cases pertaining to students at the K-12 and college level.
Lower courts ruled for the transgender athletes who challenged the state bans in Idaho and West Virginia, two of more than 24 Republican-led states to pass such restrictions. Nonetheless, the conservative-dominated Supreme Court gave no indication after over three hours of arguments that it would follow suit.
Instead, at least five of the six conservatives on the nine-member court indicated they would rule that the laws don’t violate either the Constitution or the landmark Title IX law, which prohibits discrimination in education and has produced dramatic growth in girls’ and women’s sports.
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 be allowed to compete.
What to know:
- What’s at stake? Sports participation is one of the main fronts in legislative and legal battles in recent years over the role of transgender people in U.S. public life. The nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in girls sports teams has played out at both the state and federal levels, amid a broad effort by President Donald Trump to target transgender Americans, including declarations that gender is immutable and determined at birth.
- What’s the argument? 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. Lawyers for Becky Pepper-Jackson, the West Virginia plaintiff, have argued that the ban violates her rights under Title IX, the law best known for its role in gender equity in athletics, and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. In the Idaho case, the issue is limited to the Equal Protection Clause.
- What could the court decide? The court’s conservative majority has already issued several jolting setbacks to transgender rights, including allowing Trump to move ahead, for now, with banning transgender people from the military and blocking transgender and nonbinary people from choosing passport sex markers that align with their gender identity, as well as upholding a state ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth.
