A protest outside the supreme court in Washington DC on 13 January 2026, in Washington. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/APView image in fullscreenA protest outside the supreme court in Washington DC on 13 January 2026, in Washington. Photograph: Julia Demaree Nikhinson/APUS supreme court upholds laws excluding trans women from competing in female sportsJustices voted to overturn judgements issued by lower courts in favor of trans students who sued after being barred from competing in West Virginia and Idaho
The US supreme court has upheld laws in two conservative states excluding transgender girls and women from competing in female sports in a far-reaching ruling certain to impact trans rights throughout the US.
The court’s nine justices voted to overturn previous judgements issued by lower courts in favor of two trans students who had sued after being barred from competing in West Virginia and Idaho respectively.
The ruling centered on the case of Lindsay Hecox, a college student in Idaho, and Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old high school student from West Virginia.
But the impact is likely to have a wider resonance because Idaho and West Virginia’s prohibitions against transgender athletes are already replicated in at least 25 other states.
The outcome was prefigured by a session to hear oral arguments in January, when some conservative justices displayed sympathy for the view that transgender competitors were undermining fairness in women’s sports on the grounds that their birth sex gave them a competitive advantage.
It represents yet another ruling by the court favorable to Donald Trump, who has consistently and vehemently railed against the phenomenon of what he has called “men in women’s sports”, support for which he has tried to pin on the Democrats.
Trump used the Democrats’ perceived sympathies as a campaign issue in the 2024 presidential election, airing a television and digital advert that proclaimed “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.”
His administration has cracked down on the use of gender-neutral pronouns – refusing to answer correspondence that uses them, while also barring them from passports. It has also taking steps to limit access to gender transition surgery.
Hecox, a college student, had originally sued Idaho in an attempt to overturn its 2020 first-in-the-nation law banning trans woman and girls from female sports team. She later tried to have the case dismissed, saying she was no longer pursuing female sports and feared being harased, but the court insisted on hearing it.
Pepper-Jackson challenged West Virginia’s law on the grounds that she had undergone gender-affirming treatment at a young age, did not experience male puberty, and thus enjoyed no unfair advantage.
