The US Supreme Court agreed on Thursday (3) to analyze a request from Idaho and Western Virginia to enforce its state laws that prohibit transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports teams in public schools.
Judges accepted the appeals of Western Idaho and Virginia against lower court decisions that favored transgender students who processed states. Students argued that laws discriminate based on sex and transgender condition, violating the guarantee of egalitarian protection of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution, as well as civil rights status, which prohibits sex -based discrimination.
The Supreme Court must hear the arguments on the subject during its next period, which begins in October. Judges did not comment on an appeal of Republican Legislators of Arizona who defend a similar ban on that state.
Twenty -seven states, mostly governed by Republicans, have approved laws in recent years restricting the participation of transgender people in sports. The laws of Idaho and Western Virginia designate sports teams in public schools according to “biological sex” and prohibit “male students” to participate in women’s athletic teams.
West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey says he received with satisfaction the decision of the Supreme Court from analyzing the matter, stating that state law “protects women and girls, ensuring that the field of play is safe and fair.”
“The people of Western Virginia know that it is unfair to allow male athletes to compose women,” added McCuskey.
“Trans children practice sports for the same reasons as their colleagues to learn perseverance, dedication, teamwork and simply have fun with their friends,” said Joshua Block, a lawyer for the American Union for civil liberties that represents the authors of actions in both cases.
“Categorically exclude children from school sports just because they are transgender will only make our schools places less safe and more painful for all young people,” Block said.
The issue of transgender rights is a point of inflammation in US cultural wars. Republican President Donald Trump has signed executive orders for what he called “gender ideology” and stating that the federal government will recognize only two sexes: male and female, and try to exclude transgender girls and women from women’s sports.
Trump also terminated orders from his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden, who fought discrimination against gay and transgender people.
The Supreme Court, in an important decision in June, maintained a ban supported by Republicans in Tennessee on gender affirmation medical care for smaller transgender people.
The decision, driven by the conservative majority of the Court, concluded that the ban does not violate the 14th amendment, as those who contested the law argued. They had argued that the measure illegally discriminated against these teenagers based on their sex or transgender status. The three liberal judges of the Supreme Court disagreed.
The Supreme Court in May also allowed Trump’s ban on transgender people serving in the Armed Forces to come into force.
Idaho’s challenge was presented by Lindsay Hecox, a transgender student at Boise State University who had tried to join women’s athletics and cross-country teams, but failed to qualify. Hecox, instead, participated in sports clubs, including football and race at the public university.
A federal judge blocked the Idaho Law in 2020, concluding that it probably violates the constitutional guarantee of egalitarian protection. The Court of Appeals of the 9th Circuit, based in San Francisco, upheld the judge’s action in 2023 and, in a changed decision, in 2024.
The measure illegally discriminates based on sex and transgender status, concluded the 9th circuit.
The challenge to the Western Virginia Law was presented by Becky Pepper-Jackson and student mother, Heather, in 2021, after Jackson’s elementary school prohibited Pepper-Jackson from joining women’s Cross-Country and Athletics teams due to state ban.
A federal judge decided in favor of Jackson at an early stage of the case, but then reversed the course and was on the side of the state. The Supreme Court in 2023 refused the state’s request to enforce the law while the dispute was continuing.
The Court of Appeals of the 4th Circuit, based in Richmond, Virginia, annulled in April the decision of the judge, deciding that the exclusion of Jackson from women’s teams violates the law of Title IX. State law treats transgender girls differently from other girls, “what is literally the definition of gender identity discrimination,” said the decision of the 4th circuit.
