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The decision is expected by next summer.
One week after the U.S. Supreme Court allowed states to ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors, the Supreme Court said Thursday it will hear two challenges to state laws that ban transgender students from participating in girls’ and women’s sports in its next term. The disputes, originating from West Virginia and Idaho, involve athletes Becky Pepper-Jackson and Lindsay Hecox, who have won lower-court rulings allowing them to compete.
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The American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the two transgender girls, celebrated the announcement. “Lower courts were right to block these discriminatory laws, and we will continue to defend the freedom of all kids to play,” the ACLU wrote on social media.
Supporters call the bans discriminatory, while state officials argue they protect fairness in women’s athletics.
Pepper-Jackson, 15, a high school student, takes puberty blockers, while Hecox, a 24-year-old college student, has undergone testosterone suppression and estrogen treatments, NBC News reports. Both previously secured injunctions allowing them to compete in school sports, though Pepper-Jackson’s initial court victory was partly reversed before an appeals court reinstated the block on West Virginia’s law. Hecox similarly prevailed in lower courts, including the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The states’ laws define eligibility for girls’ and women’s teams based on sex assigned at birth, with West Virginia’s statute declaring a female as “a person whose biological sex determined at birth as female.” Idaho’s law states that sports “designated for females, women, or girls should not be open to students of the male sex.”
In a statement to The Advocate, Joshua Block, senior counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said school sports should be open to all students regardless of their sex or transgender status. “Trans kids play sports for the same reasons their peers do—to learn perseverance, dedication, teamwork, and to simply have fun with their friends,” he said, adding that banning transgender youth “will only make our schools less safe and more hurtful places for all youth.” He said the ACLU believes the lower courts were right to block these laws and pledged to keep fighting to protect transgender students’ right to participate.
The Supreme Court’s decision to intervene comes amid a national wave of legislation restricting transgender rights, with more than half of U.S. states enacting similar sports bans. The cases could determine whether such laws violate the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.
West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey, who supports the ban, also celebrated the court’s acceptance of the case on X (formerly Twitter), “More huge Supreme Court news today! Stay tuned,” he wrote.
A decision is expected by June 2026.
This story is developing.
