Justices to Take Up Two Transgender Athlete Cases Next Term
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court announced Thursday that it will hear two cases challenging the constitutionality of state laws that bar transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports teams.
The two cases come to the court from Idaho and West Virginia. Just last month, a sharply divided court upheld a Tennessee law that banned some medical treatments of transgender youths.
In both cases, state lawmakers contend they are pushing back against a “growing trend” in which males identifying as females compete against — and beat — females in women’s sports across the country.
“Countless female student-athletes — including Olympic swimmers at the NCAA championships, high-school sprinters in Connecticut, and Ivy League swimmers — have been shoved aside by male athletes benefiting from obvious physiological advantages,” the petitioners in the Idaho case, Little v. Hecox, claim.
In the West Virginia case, West Virginia v. B.P.J., the 2021 state law being challenged bars transgender athletes from competing on girls’ teams in public schools.
This will be the second time the case has come before the justices.
In April 2023, the court heard an emergency petition in the case and ruled that the transgender girl who challenged the state law could continue to compete on the girls’ cross-country and track teams at her middle school in West Virginia while her appeal moved forward.
The parties challenging the laws contend the states are violating the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.
No date has been set for oral argument.
Dan can be reached at [email protected] and on X @DanMcCue
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