The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state laws that ban biological males from competing on girls’ and women’s school sports teams, upholding bans in Idaho and West Virginia.

In a 6-3 decision, the high court ruled against two transgender students, Becky Pepper-Jackson and Lindsay Hecox, who had challenged the laws in the two states.

“Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the opinion for the majority, writing that under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, schools can base eligibility for women and girls’ sports teams on biological sex,” CBS News stated.

“The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America,” Kavanaugh wrote, according to NBC News.

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He expressed sympathy for transgender girls and women who desire to play sports, saying “their desire to compete warrants respect” and that they should not be “ostracized or vilified.”

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Although the ruling directly concerns only West Virginia and Idaho, it is likely to affect 25 other states with similar bans.

It is the latest in a string of defeats for transgender people at the Supreme Court, which has a 6-3 conservative majority.

Last year, the court upheld state laws that ban gender transition treatments for transgender youth. Earlier this year, the court ruled in favor of parents who object to California policies aimed at protecting transgender students. And the court in two decisions last year allowed Trump administration policies that bar transgender people from the military and prevent them from including their gender identity on passports.

In an earlier ruling in 2020 that seems to increasingly appear to be an outlier, the court surprisingly ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the federal law prohibiting discrimination in employment, applies to gender identity as well as sexual orientation.

“Its holding may be straightforward, but that is not the point,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote in the dissenting opinion, according to The Hill.

“The problem is how the majority gets there: by moving the goalposts set by precedent and by resolving this important, divisive issue without knowing all the facts even though the validity of the means-ends fit depends on them,” she continued.

Sotomayor was joined by the high court’s other two liberal justices, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in the dissent.

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Idaho became the first state to enact a ban in 2020, and West Virginia was among the states that followed. Transgender athletes backed by the American Civil Liberties Union had hoped to topple both states’ laws.

They argued the bans violate the 14th Amendment’s equal protection guarantee and Title IX, the federal law that protects against sex discrimination in schools.

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Idaho’s law was challenged by Lindsay Hecox, who is transgender and wanted to try out for the Boise State University women’s track and cross-country teams. The state appealed after it lost in the lower courts. Once at the Supreme Court, Hecox disavowed any future plans to compete and urged the justices to toss the case.

The justices considered Idaho’s appeal alongside one from West Virginia, which sought to enforce its law against Becky Pepper-Jackson, a teenage shot-putter and discus thrower who has publicly identified as female since the third grade.

Pepper-Jackson is the only known person to whom the state’s ban has applied. Last month, Pepper-Jackson won a state title in women’s AAA shot put.

The two athletes’ challenges garnered support from LGBTQ advocacy groups, the National Women’s Law Center and 15 Democratic-led states.

 

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