US Supreme Court allows states to ban trans athletes from female school and college sports

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday, June 30, 2026, that individual states possess the authority to prohibit transgender athletes from participating in women's and girls' school and college sports teams. This 6-3 decision by the conservative majority upheld existing laws in West Virginia and Idaho that had been challenged by transgender student-athletes.

The Court determined that these state-level prohibitions do not violate the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection or Title IX, a federal law preventing sex-based discrimination in education. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, stated that Title IX does not necessitate schools to allow "biological males" to compete in women's sports. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent, argued that the ruling prematurely resolved factual questions and unduly limited Title IX's protections to biological sex.

This landmark ruling marks another setback for transgender rights and is expected to impact over two dozen other Republican-led states that have enacted similar bans on transgender individuals competing in female athletic categories.