The US Supreme Court added two major cases to its fall docket concerning the rights of transgender athletes, adding Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. Both cases are challenging state laws that restrict participation in girls’ and women’s sports to athletes who are actually females. The cases have major ramifications for female athletes, who are repeatedly seeing their trophies stolen by males who present themselves as females, and males invading their locker rooms.
The court’s decision to hear the cases comes two weeks after its ruling in United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld Tennessee’s ban on certain gender-transition treatments for minors. That 6-3 ruling found that the Tennessee law did not violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause because it draws distinctions based on age and medical diagnosis rather than sex.
In the two new cases, the justices will confront the question of when laws that affect transgender individuals must meet heightened scrutiny.
In Little v. Hecox, the Court will review Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which prohibits transgender athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams. In Idaho, a transgender college student challenged the law, and both a federal district court and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sided with the male who sued. The judges said the law likely violates the Equal Protection Clause and applied heightened scrutiny in its review. Idaho appealed the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that the law treats athletes based on the science of biological sex, a classification the state claims has long been accepted in the context of sports.
In West Virginia v. B.P.J., the state’s Save Women’s Sports Act, which bars male athletes from playing on girls’ teams in competitive or contact sports reserved for girls, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the male teen who brought the lawsuit, concluding that the law violates Title IX, the federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs and activities.
Together, the two cases could have sweeping implications for how courts interpret protections for transgender individuals in education and athletics. While the Idaho case focuses primarily on constitutional equal protection issues, the West Virginia case raises statutory questions under Title IX, potentially setting nationwide precedent on how the law applies to transgender students in school sports.
Alaska currently follows guidelines set by the Alaska School Activities Association’s policy that states that if a separate high school athletics team is established for female students, participation is limited to those who are female. This effectively means that transgender boys presenting as girls are generally banned from competing on girls’ sports teams. A transgender may still be able to compete on a coed team or a boys team.
If the Court upholds the state bans: Alaska lawmakers could pass similar legislation to Idaho’s, arguing that the Court has now set a constitutional or statutory precedent allowing such policies. Rep. Jamie Allard has championed such legislation but has not been able to move it in a Democrat-dominated Legislature.
“This case is about preserving fairness and opportunity for female athletes. Idaho’s law simply ensures that girls and women aren’t forced to compete against biological males in sports designed for them. Title IX was created to give women equal footing, not to erase the very category it was meant to protect,” Allard said.
Arguments in both cases are expected to be scheduled for the fall, with decisions unlikely before the spring or summer of 2026.
This week the US Department of Education Office for Civil Rights found that California has violated Title IX by allowing biological males to compete in girls’ sports. The state is nearing the end of the 10-day period to reverse its policy or lose federal education funding.