Supreme Court ruled states can ban trans athletes, but it’s not required

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 30 that states can ban transgender girls and women from competing in girls' and women's sports, but the court didn't require states to adopt that policy, sidestepping a national ban. The ruling is a partial victory for the Trump administration, which has sought a nationwide ban.

The ruling upheld West Virginia and Idaho laws that prohibited transgender women — people whose birth-assigned sex is male but who identify as women — from participating in girls' and women's sports in publicly funded schools and colleges.

In addition to West Virginia and Idaho, 27 additional states have similar laws or policies limiting the participation of transgender athletes. 

The court's ruling combined two cases, both brought by transgender athletes who argued their states' laws violated Title IX and the Constitution's equal protection clause by not letting them participate in the sports team that aligned with their gender identity. 

Title IX is a 1972 federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded schools. The law is best known for requiring equal athletics participation opportunities for women and men.

The Biden and Trump administrations held opposing views on whether Title IX protects or prohibits transgender athletes, and legal cases wrestling with this question have been progressing through the courts for years.

Ultimately, all nine justices agreed that the West Virginia and Idaho state laws don't violate Title IX. But the justices were split on whether it violated the equal protection clause.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that the majority's decision to dismiss the equal protection claim was premature. Sotomayor wrote that "unresolved factual questions" prevented the court from assessing the merits of the equal protection claim, and so the court should have returned the case to the lower district court for review. 

Although the ruling aligns with Trump's position, it does not fulfill his campaign pledge yet.

The court's majority opinion said Title IX and the equal protection clause lets sports teams determine eligibility based on biological sex — meaning states that want to exclude transgender athletes can.

But the opinion does not require states to implement a ban. The court did not address whether trans-inclusive policies were permissible, and ruled only on whether trans-exclusive policies were allowed. 

As lawyer Elana Redfield put it in an email to PolitiFact, "Today's decision makes clear that states MAY enforce Title IX to exclude transgender people, but does not mandate that they MUST." Redfield is the federal policy director at UCLA's Williams Institute, an LGBTQ+ public policy research institute. 

This is relevant because 21 states either have no policies on transgender athlete participation or like California, have laws or policies that actively protect transgender athlete participation.

Because the Trump administration takes the position that Title IX prohibits the participation of transgender athletes, over the past two years the Education and Justice departments have both launched numerous investigations into several state education departments, statewide athletic associations and school districts, alleging Title IX violations because of their transgender athlete policies. 

So far, the Justice Department has sued state school systems in Maine, California and Minnesota. The lawsuits are ongoing and no federal funding has been revoked.

"The Trump Administration takes the position that sex based eligibility requirements for girls' and women's sports should be mandatory," said Doriane Lambelet Coleman, a Duke University law professor. "The Court today only decided that such standards are permissible, and so the decision doesn't have a direct effect on the Administration's ongoing investigations." 

The federal government may attempt to leverage this decision or cite it in their legal cases or enforcement actions against states and schools with trans-inclusive policies. But this ruling alone does not institute a nationwide ban.

This promise remains In the Works.

PolitiFact Staff Writers Caleb McCullough and Gracey Abernethy contributed to this report.