States can ban transgender athletes from participating in women's sports, Supreme Court rules

The Supreme Court upheld laws that prohibit transgender women and girls from competing on womens and girls sports teams in school.

The case stemmed from laws passed in Idaho in 2020 and West Virginia in 2021.

In Idaho, a woman named Lindsay Hecox challenged the states law in court because she wanted to be able to try out for the womens track and cross-country teams at Boise State University as a transgender woman.

Meanwhile, in West Virginia, the mother of a teenager who has identified as a girl since she was in third grade filed a case against the state laws that prohibit her daughter from competing on track and cross-country teams at school.

The teen, known in the case as BPJ, has taken puberty blockers to prevent the onset of male puberty, as well as hormone therapy with estrogen, according to court documents.

West Virginia passed the "Save Women's Sports Act" in 2021, which required public schools and colleges to designate sports teams based on biological sex at birth. The law prevented the teen from competing on her middle school's sports teams.

Before reaching the Supreme Court, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a lower court's decision to uphold the ban in April 2024, claiming it violated Title IX protections.