Supreme Court

Trans Athletes Lose (in Court)

Plus: A 29-year-old DSAer wins, San Francisco's disappearing babies, and more...

Liz Wolfe | 7.1.2026 9:30 AM

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(Photo: Sue Dorfman/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)

Big SCOTUS rulings: The Supreme Court ruled 6–3 yesterday, upholding West Virginia's and Idaho's laws that bar transgender athletes who identify as women from competing in girls' sports. This decision has implications for 25 other states with similar laws.

"To provide equal opportunity for female athletes, schools do not merely maintain, for example, one soccer team, one basketball team, one ice hockey team, and one lacrosse team that are equally open to female and male athletes," wrote Justice Brett Kavanaugh for the majority. "That approach would deny equal opportunity to female athletes because, as all agree, females and males have inherent physical differences relevant to athletic performance. Those 'physical differences between men and women' are 'enduring.' United States v. Virginia, 518 U. S. 515, 533 (1996). The differences include, among other things, height, weight, strength, speed, endurance, and jumping ability. Therefore, in contact sports, forcing female athletes to compete against males can create significant safety risks. And in virtually all competitive sports, forcing female athletes to compete against males can undermine competitive fairness."

He continued: "The question before the Court is: Under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, may schools maintain women's and girls' sports for biological females? In other words, may schools determine eligibility for women's and girls' sports based on biological sex? The answer is yes."

"Allowing a biological male athlete to compete on a girls' team necessarily displaces or disadvantages a female athlete—replacing her on the roster, knocking her out of the starting lineup, reducing her playing time, depriving her of a medal and the like," continues Kavanaugh. "That hard reality of sports cannot be ignored or swept under the rug."

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