SCOTUS upholds state bans on transgender athletes in female sports
The Supreme Court ruled that states can bar transgender women and girls from competing on female sports teams.
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that state laws banning transgender girls and women from women’s sports do not violate federal Title IX provisions.
- Following the ruling, 27 states now have laws barring trans girls from participating in girls’ sports at publicly funded schools and colleges.
- The court’s decision allows existing state-level bans to stand but does not require them in all 50 states.
- Despite the wave of legislation, very few transgender athletes participate in youth, college, or professional sports.
- Legal experts suggest the ruling’s reasoning could affect future transgender rights and sex discrimination disputes beyond sports.
On June 30, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that laws banning transgender girls and women from women’s sports in Idaho and West Virginia do not violate federal civil rights laws.
The nine justices unanimously agreed the state laws do not violate federal Title IX provisions but were split on whether the laws violate the equal protection clause in the Constitution’s 14th Amendment, which says the government should not “deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”
The plaintiffs in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. argued that the challenged laws unconstitutionally discriminated against transgender people. But the Supreme Court ruled that because Title IX – which was enacted in 1972 and requires equal treatment for male and female athletes – explicitly allows sex-segregated athletic teams, states can limit players to participation based on their sex at birth.
“The Court concludes that separate sports teams for biological males and biological females are reasonable given the inherent physical differences between the sexes,” Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion. “The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girl’s sports throughout America.”
Since then, the conversation around transgender athlete participation has reached a fever pitch. After WNBA player Sophie Cunningham voiced her support for banning transgender girls and women from women’s sports, demonstrators in multiple cities gathered outside Indiana Fever games and rallied for and against transgender participation. The Seattle Storm suspended a team co-owner after she allegedly cursed out two fans who sat courtside to support Cunningham. A security guard at an Atlanta Dream vs. Indiana Fever game asked two fans to cover up their XX-XY Athletics shirts.
In August, former NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White declared themselves eligible for the 2027 WNBA Draft on social media and said they identified as women. Then in September, Kanter Freedom sued the Chicago Sky after he was ejected from a game against the Indiana Fever and subsequently banned from Chicago’s Wintrust Arena.
The WNBA declared Kanter Freedom and White ineligible to play in the league, and WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert separately criticized attempts to “sow divisiveness” in the league.
Meanwhile, multiple bills on trans athlete participation continue to wind their way through Congress, and several national and international sports organizations, including the International Olympic Committee, have revamped gender eligibility policies.
“As somebody who’s been working on these issues of transgender people in sports since the mid-1990s, I’ve seen an enormous shift,” said Shannon Minter, legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights. “For a long time this issue was treated, as it should be, as just a policy issue. … The discussions were really focused on medical evidence, trying to come up with approaches and rules that were fair and made sense. It wasn’t a big, controversial issue at all.”
Here’s where things stand right now with transgender athlete participation laws in the United States.
What does the Supreme Court ruling mean for transgender athletes?
The ruling allows existing state-level bans excluding transgender girls and women from participating in girls and women’s high school and college sports to stand, but it does not mean bans are required in all 50 states.
To date, 27 states have laws barring trans girls from participating in girls’ sports at publicly funded K-12 schools and colleges, a USA TODAY review of state laws and policy documents found. Minter said those bans do not extend to local private sports leagues or community recreational leagues, which are free to create their own policies. City-owned leagues can also create their own policies but may be subject to state public accommodation laws or county and municipal nondiscrimination codes.
The states with active bans on trans athletes are:
- Alabama
- Arkansas
- Arizona
- Florida
- Georgia
- Idaho
- Indiana
- Iowa
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Louisiana
- Mississippi
- Missouri
- Montana
- Nebraska
- New Hampshire
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Ohio
- Oklahoma
- South Carolina
- South Dakota
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- West Virginia
- Wyoming
Most sports bans − including Fairness in Women’s Sports Acts passed in Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, New Hampshire and North Carolina − do not exclude transgender boys or men from playing on men’s teams but instead focus solely on excluding transgender girls and women from women’s teams based on concerns that physiological differences give them an unfair competitive advantage.
Existing research is still limited and has not discovered universal athletic advantages for transgender women. Research published in February 2026 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that while transgender women who underwent a year of hormone therapy had higher levels of lean mass than cisgender women, transgender women had no clear physical fitness advantage in measurements of upper-body strength, lower-body strength or maximal oxygen consumption. An earlier UK study published in 2024 found that transgender women had lower lung function and cardiovascular fitness than cisgender female athletes, but their grip strength was higher.
Of the six states still in legislative session as of Sept. 23, three − Michigan, New Jersey and Pennsylvania − have pending bills that would institute bans on trans athletes in girls’ sports. Republican-led efforts to pass bans in those states have met Democratic opposition and stalled.
Two more states, Alaska and Virginia, have not passed state-level legislation but follow state education department policies prevent trans students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity.
The Supreme Court ruling does not prevent states or school districts from adopting policies that support transgender students playing sports consistent with their gender identity, Minter said.
“States that want to restrict or ban transgender students from playing school sports have enormous leeway to do that,” Minter said. “They can’t categorically say that no transgender student can participate in sports at all, but unfortunately they are able to say that transgender girls can only play on boys’ teams. But it also means that states that have inclusive policies are free to continue doing that as well. So it cuts both ways.”
The decision also doesn’t spell out how a person’s sex is determined, leaving the door open for states and organizations to create their own eligibility rules that may require athletes to undergo genetic testing or physical examinations.
What about transgender participation in pro sports?
Professional sports leagues and international sports federations are typically private entities or nonprofits and thus not subject to Title IX, which applies to educational institutions or the equal protection clause, which applies to state and local governments in the United States.
The International Olympic Committee, U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Women’s Tennis Association and NCAA are among organizations that have adopted policies that bar trans women and girls from competing in a women’s category.
The WNBA does not have an explicit policy mentioning gender identity or outlining eligibility criteria for trans or intersex athletes, but the league’s CBA states, “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA.”
Very few transgender athletes actually play sports
The wave of anti-transgender legislation is aimed at a tiny segment of the United States population. According to a 2025 study by the Williams Institute at UCLA Law, only 1% of people aged 13 and over in the U.S. identify as transgender.
Transgender athletes are rare in youth, college and professional sports. Although privacy laws make it impossible to determine exactly how many transgender athletes are competing at the high school level, there is statistical evidence that trans kids participate in sports at a much lower rate than cisgender kids. The 2024 National Survey of Children’s Health revealed that 58% of all kids aged 6-17 played sports, while the Human Rights Campaign reported in 2023 that 19% of transgender youth nationwide were playing sports, including fewer than 1,300 who played sports in school.
In 2024, NCAA president Charlie Baker testified to the Senate that he knows of fewer than 10 transgender student-athletes out of 510,000 college athletes.
In professional women’s sports, there have only been a handful of known transgender athletes. Renée Richards played professional tennis from 1976 to 1981. Canadian track cyclist Veronica Ivy won two world championships in 2018 and 2019. In 2021, New Zealand weightlifter Laurel Hubbard competed in the Tokyo Olympics.
There are currently no transgender women playing in the WNBA or in the National Women’s Soccer League. Former WNBA player Layshia Clarendon, who retired in 2024, was the first transgender non-binary athlete in the league’s history. Japanese national soccer team forward Kumi Yokoyama, a transgender man, and Canadian national soccer team midfielder Quinn, who is transgender and non-binary, both used to play in the NWSL.
Impact on Title IX and equal protection laws
Although the Supreme Court decision was about school athletics, Minter said, its reasoning could affect future transgender rights and sex discrimination disputes in areas of law beyond sports.
Kavanaugh wrote that Title IX did not speak to the issue of transgender participation in sports and dismissed the plaintiffs’ arguments that trans women and girls who take puberty blockers or hormones could eliminate their supposed physical advantage.
“In the distinctive sports context, in other words, the States may treat all biological males the same and treat all biological females the same, given the inherent physical differences between biological males and biological females,” Kavanaugh wrote. “In short, States are not required to conduct an individual-by-individual comparison of the physical and athletic capabilities of all biological males in order to satisfy intermediate scrutiny.”
Intermediate scrutiny is the legal standard used under the Equal Protection Clause to evaluate sex-based discrimination, and requires that any such law further an important governmental objective in order to be constitutional.
Minter said the Supreme Court’s decision overgeneralizes and waters down the equal protection standard for any type of sex-based discrimination, which could ultimately weaken Title IX and justify treating women and men differently in contexts outside of sports.
“That aspect of the decision, I think, makes very clear that this issue of transgender athletes is in significant part a Trojan horse for undermining protections for women,” Minter said. “I think we’re seeing efforts immediately by groups such as the Heritage Foundation to exploit the decision, to emphasize the physical differences between men and women and to use those differences to justify treating women differently.”
The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank known for sponsoring Project 2025, released a policy paper in July that denigrates Title IX as an “engine of feminist social engineering” and advocates for loosening federal protections for women’s sports.
And because the Supreme Court’s decision is narrowly focused on sports bans, it does not say whether Title IX allows or forbids discrimination against trans students in other contexts, or whether courts should apply the same level of legal scrutiny to other anti-trans laws such as bathroom bills or gender-affirming care access.