The Supreme Court on Tuesday will hear oral arguments in two cases about state bans on transgender athletes playing in women’s and girls sports.
In July, the justices agreed to take up the cases in its 2025-26 term. In its previous term, the Supreme Court upheld state bans on gender-related medical treatments like puberty blockers, hormone therapy and surgery for transgender youth.
The issue has become a major political flashpoint that is often referenced by President Donald Trump. He previously signed an executive order banning transgender athletes from participating in public school sports.
In recent years, more than two dozen states have passed laws that ban transgender athletes from playing on some sports teams. In some cases, courts have blocked those laws.
The two cases, West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, stem from an appeal to a lower court’s ruling that said a student’s rights are violated if they are banned from participating in sporting competitions.
The appeals court ruled in the student’s favor and argued that the state ban violated the Title IX sex discrimination in education law in addition to the Constitution’s equal protection clause.
The Hecox case, which originated in Idaho, is on the same issue.
It will be the first transgender rights case before the justices this year since last term, when they upheld a Tennessee law that bans gender-related medical treatment for transgender minors. The case, United States v. Skrmetti, could impact about two dozen other states that have similar restrictions, including Utah.
In the West Virginia case before the justices, Becky Pepper-Jackson, a transgender student, filed a lawsuit with the American Civil Liberties Union and Lambda Legal to argue that the law violated her rights.
Does Title IX include gender identity?
Groups like the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty argue that Title IX doesn’t address gender identity. Becket attorneys filed a friend-of-the-court brief to the justices arguing that redefining sex will threaten religious freedom.
“Any ruling that Title IX covers sexual orientation and gender identity will unleash a new tidal wave of litigation, with federal, state, and local agencies doubling down on their attempts to force religious organizations either to conform or to be ousted from the public square,” Becket writes in its brief.
Becket, in a statement Monday related to West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act, said that if the justices rule in the students’ favor it would “open the floodgates to aggressive federal enforcement and lawsuits against not only religious educational institutions, but also religious healthcare providers.”
In a statement to the Deseret News, Becket counsel Laura Wolk Slavis said stretching Title IX beyond what Congress intended would “spell disaster for religious schools, healthcare providers, and other faith-based ministries nationwide.”
“That’s what happened after Bostock, where religious Americans were forced through years of needless litigation for their beliefs about sexuality,” she said. “The Court should ensure that doesn’t happen again here.”
The legal battle has earned the attention of All-American swimmer and activist Riley Gaines, who competed against transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, which led to her taking a national role on the issue and receiving praise from President Donald Trump.
Gaines and others gathered Monday at the Supreme Court to urge the justices to give states the ability to set sex-based rules for their public schools.