As if the closing days of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2024-25 term were not bad enough for transgender people, the court announced July 3 that it would decide next session whether states can ban transgender athletes from participating in women’s school sports.
The court ruled June 18, in a 6-3 decision, that states may ban gender-affirming care for trans minors, even when their parents want the treatment for their child. That decision, U.S. v. Skrmetti, upheld a ban on gender-affirming care for trans minors in Tennessee.
The transgender cases accepted for review in the 2025-26 session, which begins in October, involve states seeking to overturn lower court rulings that banning transgender women and girls from female sports violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection of the law.
No date has been set for oral argument. The cases are from Idaho and West Virginia.
Idaho v. Hecox asks, “Whether laws that seek to protect women's and girls' sports by limiting participation to women and girls based on sex violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.” It involves athletes at the college level.
West Virginia v. Jackson asks, “Whether the Equal Protection Clause prevents a state from offering separate boys' and girls' sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth.” It also asks, “Whether Title IX prevents a state from consistently designating girls' and boys' sports teams based on biological sex determined at birth.” The West Virginia case involves Becky Pepper-Jackson, who was a 14-year-old trans female athlete at the middle school level. She has taken puberty blockers to avoid developing the larger muscles associated with male athletes.
Idaho passed the first “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” in 2020, even though there were no trans females seeking to play sports at the time. It bars trans females from participating at any age, primary school through college, both intramural and elite competitions. It allows any individual to challenge the sex of any opposing student athlete and require the challenged athlete to submit intrusive medical procedures, including gynecological exams, to verify her sex.
Lindsay Hecox began hormone treatment before her first year Boise State University and filed a lawsuit against the state when it enacted its ban on trans female athletes. She tried out for the college women’s running team but did not make it. She has since been playing for club teams for running and soccer.
In West Virginia v. Jackson, the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund are representing Pepper-Jackson, now 15, who has been taking hormone treatment, “meaning that she has never experienced the effects of testosterone on her body that cisgender boys typically experience,” according to the groups’ brief. Pepper-Jackson also raised a claim in her case under Title IX.
“Our client just wants to play sports with her friends and peers,” stated Sasha Buchert, a trans woman who is a senior attorney and director of Lambda Legal’s Nonbinary and Transgender Rights Project. “Everyone understands the value of participating in team athletics, for fitness, leadership, socialization, and myriad other benefits. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit last April issued a thoughtful and thorough ruling allowing B.P.J. to continue participating in track events. That well-reasoned decision should stand the test of time, and we stand ready to defend it.”
Earlier this year, efforts to enact a national ban failed in Congress, Lambda Legal noted. Since 2020, 27 states have banned transgender youth from playing school sports. Many of these bans allow for invasive forms of sex testing that put all female student-athletes at risk and open the door for any school official or adult to question and harass young women, the agency stated in a news release.
The University of Pennsylvania announced July 1 that it will no longer allow transgender women to compete on its women’s sports teams as part of an agreement reached with the Trump administration, the Washington Post reported. The deal followed a government investigation into the school centered on Lia Thomas, a transgender athlete who competed on the school’s women’s swim team and became the first known transgender woman to win an NCAA Division I title.
Under the agreement, Thomas was stripped of her medals and the university must apologize to all non-trans athletes who lost to a trans athlete.
Other court actions
On June 30, the court granted petitions from four states (Idaho, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and West Virginia) essentially extending its Skrmetti decision beyond the confines of hormones and minors. All four were sent back to the lower courts for reconsideration under the dictates of Skrmetti.
In Idaho v. M.H. and T.D., the state sought to defend its exclusion of Medicaid coverage for sex-reassignment surgery. The patients in this case were 20 years old.
In North Carolina v. Kadel, the state sought to protect its decision to exclude from state health insurance coverage for teachers and other state employees “treatments leading to or in connection with sex changes or modifications and related care.”
The West Virginia v. Anderson petition asked the court to protect the state’s decision to exclude coverage under Medicaid expenses “for certain surgeries that treat gender dysphoria.”
The Oklahoma v. Fowler case asked whether a state could refuse to “alter its official certificate documenting a person’s sex at birth to represent that person’s current gender identity.”
Also on June 30, the Supreme Court denied the petitions of transgender youth and their parents in two states (Tennessee and Kentucky) seeking the right to receive gender-affirming treatment. The Tennessee case, Williams v. Tennessee, was the appeal brought by the patient-parent plaintiffs in the Skrmetti case. But instead of taking the plaintiffs’ appeal, the court took the state’s appeal. The Doe v. Kentucky case was appealed by the ACLU and the National Center for LGBTQ Rights on behalf of seven minors and their parents.
Conversion therapy case
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court in March accepted Chiles v. Colorado for review, an appeal from a Christian therapist challenging Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors. The therapist, Kaley Chiles, said she works only “with voluntary clients who determine the goals that they have for themselves.”
That case likely will be argued in the fall.
Conversion therapy seeks to change someone’s sexual orientation or gender identity. It has been widely debunked by major medical organizations and several states, including California, have bans on such treatments for minors.
“If clients are content with their sexual orientation or gender identity, Chiles does not ‘try to help [them] change their attractions, behavior, or identity’ but instead helps them develop other therapeutic goals,” says Chiles’ petition, written by the anti-LGBTQ Alliance Defending Freedom.
Colorado’s brief opposing the appeal notes that the state ban is based on “overwhelming evidence that efforts to change a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity are unsafe and ineffective.”
