US Supreme Court upholds bans on transgender athletes in school sports

WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state laws barring transgender athletes from competing in girls’ and women’s school sports, delivering a major victory to conservatives in one of the country’s most fiercely contested culture-war battles.

The decision allows Idaho, West Virginia and more than two dozen other Republican-led states to enforce measures requiring students to compete in public school and college teams according to their sex assigned at birth rather than their gender identity.

The ruling is the latest sign of the conservative-dominated court’s willingness to side with states on the issue, following last year’s decision upholding Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors.

President Donald Trump applauded the decision as a “big win,” posting on his Truth Social platform that the court had taken “that ridiculous situation off the table”.

The cases before the court were brought by transgender students who argued that the bans violated the US Constitution’s equal protection guarantee and Title IX, the federal civil rights law barring sex discrimination in education.

Fair competition?

Supporters of the laws say they are needed to preserve fair competition and protect athletic opportunities for girls and women.

Opponents say they single out a tiny number of vulnerable students for exclusion and discrimination, turning children’s participation in school sports into a national political battleground.

Writing for the majority, Justice Brett Kavanaugh rejected arguments that restrictions on biological males in sports for women and girls unconstitutionally discriminate on the basis of sex or gender identity.

“May schools determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex? The answer is yes,” Kavanaugh wrote.

“Consistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the States may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females. They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex,” he added.

The court was largely divided 6-3, although three justices who opposed the decision concurred in part.

The Idaho case arose from the state’s 2020 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which was challenged by a transgender athlete at an Idaho university. Lower courts found the law unconstitutional.

Idaho solicitor general Alan Hurst told the justices during arguments in January that “sex is what matters in sports,” citing differences in size, strength, muscle mass and lung capacity.

The West Virginia case involved a teenage transgender girl who was barred under a 2021 state law from running on her middle school girls’ track team.

Her lawyers argued that transgender girls who receive testosterone-suppressing treatment do not retain an unfair athletic advantage and that the laws are broad bans driven more by politics than evidence.

‘Zero-sum game’

However, several conservative justices had voiced skepticism during arguments.

In his opinion, Kavanaugh sympathised with transgender students who wanted to play sports, but described many sports as a “zero-sum game,” in which one athlete’s inclusion can mean another loses a roster spot, playing time or a medal.

The ruling lands amid an escalating national push by conservatives to regulate transgender participation in school life, health care and public accommodations.

Trump issued an executive order last year allowing federal agencies to deny funding to schools that permit transgender athletes to compete on girls’ or women’s teams.

The issue has been politically charged since Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania who had previously competed on the men’s team, became a flashpoint after racing in women’s collegiate meets in 2022.

Seventy percent of voters in a new Quinnipiac University poll think transgender women and girls should not be allowed to play on women’s and girls’ school sports teams.

Terry Schilling, of the conservative American Principles Project, called the decision a “landmark victory for fairness and sanity.”

However, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor penned a blistering dissent, saying “the court’s decision rests on assumptions rather than facts”.