Supreme Court set to hear cases that could reshape transgender rights nationwide

WASHINGTON — A pair of blockbuster cases to be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court could carry far-reaching implications for transgender rights, even as the Trump administration during the past year has rolled out a broad anti-trans agenda targeting everything from sports to military service.

The court on Jan. 13 will hear challenges to laws in Idaho and West Virginia banning transgender athletes from participating in women’s sports. Both cases center on whether the laws violate the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

The West Virginia case before the Supreme Court also questions whether the state’s law violates Title IX — a landmark federal civil rights law that bars schools that receive federal funding from practicing sex-based discrimination.

Lower court rulings have temporarily blocked the states from implementing the bans, to varying extents, and Republican attorneys general in Idaho and West Virginia have asked the Supreme Court to intervene.

“We know we have an uphill fight, and our hope is certainly that we prevail,” Joshua Block, senior counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union’s LGBT & HIV Project, who will be presenting oral arguments in the West Virginia case, said at a Jan. 8 ACLU press briefing.

“But we also hope that regardless of what happens, this case isn’t successfully used as a tool to undermine the rights of transgender folks more generally in areas far beyond just athletics.”

The outcome of the oral arguments before a court dominated 6-3 by conservative justices will be closely watched. Nearly 30 states have laws that ban trans students’ participation in sports consistent with their gender identity, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an independent think tank.

Idaho case

The justices are taking up both cases in one day. First will be Little v. Hecox, which contests a 2020 Idaho law that categorically bans trans athletes from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

Lindsay Hecox sued over the ban in 2020, just months before the law was set to take effect.

Though Hecox wanted to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University, the Idaho law — the first of its kind in the nation — would have prevented her from doing so because she is transgender.

A federal court in Idaho halted the law from taking effect later that year. A federal appeals court initially upheld the ruling in 2023 but later adjusted the scope of it in 2024 to only apply to Hecox, not other athletes.

Idaho appealed to the Supreme Court in July 2024.

Since that time, Hecox has asked both an Idaho federal court and the Supreme Court to drop the case.

An Idaho federal judge in October rejected that attempt, but the Supreme Court deferred the request until after oral argument — meaning justices could still dismiss the case.

“The Supreme Court is trying to decide whether Idaho can preserve women’s sports based on biological sex, or must female be redefined based on gender identity,” Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador said at a Jan. 8 press briefing ahead of the oral arguments.

“I think Idaho is just trying to protect fairness, safety and equal protection for girls and women in sports,” Labrador said at the briefing alongside West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey, hosted by the conservative legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom.

West Virginia case

After the Idaho case, the justices will hear arguments in West Virginia v. B.P.J., which centers on a 2021 Mountain State law that also bans trans athletes from participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

McCuskey argued that his state’s law “supports and bolsters the original intent and the continuing intent and purpose of Title IX.”

McCuskey said the law complies with the Equal Protection Clause because it “treats all biological males and all biological females identically” and “doesn’t ban anyone from playing sports.”

Becky Pepper-Jackson, who was 11 at the time, wanted to try out for the girls’ cross-country team when starting middle school, but would have been prevented from doing so under the West Virginia law because she is transgender.

Her mother sued on her behalf in 2021.

A federal appeals court in 2024 barred West Virginia from enforcing the ban, prompting the state to ask the nation’s highest court to intervene.

White House, Congress zero in on trans athletes

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s administration has taken steps at the federal level to prohibit trans athletes’ participation in women’s sports teams aligning with their gender identity.

Trump signed an executive order in February 2025 that banned such participation and made it the policy of the United States to “rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities, which results in the endangerment, humiliation, and silencing of women and girls and deprives them of privacy.”

The NCAA promptly changed its policy to comply with the order, limiting “competition in women’s sports to student-athletes assigned female at birth only.”

In late 2024, prior to the policy shift, NCAA President Charlie Baker told Congress that of the more than half-million total athletes in NCAA schools, he knew of fewer than 10 who were transgender.

The GOP-led House passed a measure in January 2025 that would bar transgender students from participating on women’s school sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

But Senate Democrats in March blocked an attempt at imposing such a ban and codifying Trump’s executive order.

Forty-eight GOP members of Congress argued in a September amicus brief supporting Idaho and West Virginia that “if allowed to stand, the interpretation of the lower courts will unsettle the very promises that Congress made to generations of young women and men through Title IX.”

On the flip side, 130 congressional Democrats stood behind the two transgender athletes in a November amicus brief, noting that “categorical bans preventing transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity impose significant harm on all children — especially girls.”

The group argued that such bans “do not meet the standards this Court has put in place to assess discrimination based on sex — whether as a matter of Title IX or under the Equal Protection Clause.”

Trump’s broader anti-trans agenda has extended beyond athletic participation in the nearly one year since he took office.

He signed executive orders that: make it the “policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female;” restrict access to gender-affirming care for kids; and aim to bar openly transgender service members from the U.S. military.

‘Textbook discrimination’

The Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group, has noted that there has been “considerable disinformation and misinformation about what the inclusion of transgender youth in sports entails” and that trans students’ sports participation “has been a non-issue.”

In a statement ahead of oral arguments, HRC’s senior director of legal policy Cathryn Oakley said “every child, no matter their background, race, or gender, should have access to a quality education where they can feel safe to learn and grow — and for many kids that involves being a part of a school sports team.”

Oakley added that “to deny transgender kids the chance to participate in school sports alongside their peers simply because of who they are is textbook discrimination — and it’s unconstitutional.”

This article was published in partnership with Creative Commons. Read the original story here.