As of 2025, at least 25 states have enacted laws restricting transgender athletes from competing on girls' or women's sports teams in public schools.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear cases from West Virginia and Idaho challenging state laws that bar transgender girls and women from female sports categories.
Supporters of the state laws argue that physiological differences from male puberty create competitive advantages that warrant sex-based categories in athletics.
Opponents argue the laws violate Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause by singling out transgender students for exclusion.
In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in Bostock v. Clayton County that workplace discrimination based on gender identity is barred under Title VII; the court has not yet applied that reasoning to Title IX athletics.