{"id":2023,"date":"2026-06-30T15:37:35","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:37:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=2023"},"modified":"2026-06-30T15:37:35","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T15:37:35","slug":"supreme-court-upholds-state-laws-banning-transgender-girls-and-women-from-school-athletic-teams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hawaiimovinginsider.com\/?p=2023","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court upholds state laws banning transgender girls and women from school athletic teams"},"content":{"rendered":"
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WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams, in another setback for transgender people.<\/p>\n

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The court\u2019s conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, ruled that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia don\u2019t violate the Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.<\/p>\n

More than two dozen other Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes, and the decision seems certain to extend to them as well.<\/p>\n

Left unresolved by the outcome are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.<\/p>\n

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Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 16-year-old high school sophomore in Bridgeport, West Virginia, has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has publicly identified as a girl since age 8 and has been issued a West Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female. She is the only transgender person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia.<\/p>\n

Pepper-Jackson has progressed from a back-of-the-pack cross-country runner in middle school to statewide champion in the shot put. She beat the second-place finisher by two feet in last month\u2019s West Virginia championship meet.<\/p>\n

In the Idaho case, Lindsay Hecox sued over the state\u2019s first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women\u2019s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. She didn\u2019t make either squad because \u201cshe was too slow,\u201d her lawyer, Kathleen Hartnett, told the court during arguments in January, but she competed in club-level soccer and running.<\/p>\n

Prominent women in sports have weighed in on both sides. Tennis champion Martina Navratilova, swimmers Summer Sanders and Donna de Varona and beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh Jennings are supporting the state bans. Soccer stars Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn and basketball players Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart back the transgender athletes.<\/p>\n

In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled LGBTQ people are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, finding that \u201csex plays an unmistakable role\u201d in employers\u2019 decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate.<\/p>\n

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But last year, the six conservative justices on the nine-member court declined to apply the same sort of analysis when they upheld state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.<\/p>\n

The states supporting the prohibitions on transgender athletes argued there is no reason to extend the ruling barring workplace discrimination to Title IX.<\/p>\n

Idaho\u2019s law, state Solicitor General Alan Hurst said, is \u201cnecessary for fair competition because, where sports are concerned, men and women are obviously not the same.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lawyers for Pepper-Jackson argued that such distinctions generally make sense but that their client has none of those advantages because of the unique circumstances of her early transition. In Hecox\u2019s case, her lawyers wanted the court to dismiss the case because she had forsworn trying to play on women\u2019s teams.<\/p>\n

NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress in 2024 that he was aware of only 10 transgender athletes out of more than half a million students on college teams. But despite the small numbers, the issue has taken on outsize importance.<\/p>\n

Baker\u2019s NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women\u2019s sports after President Donald Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.<\/p>\n

The public generally is supportive of the limits. conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults \u201cstrongly\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to compete only on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were \u201cstrongly\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.<\/p>\n

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people ages 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.<\/p>\n

Read more Former city employee pleads not guilty in alleged $800K Hawaii Foodbank fraud<\/a><\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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