Supreme Court upholds state laws banning transgender athletes - ESPN

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams, in another setback for transgender people.

The court's six-justice conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, ruled that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia don't violate the Constitution. The court unanimously agreed that barring transgender girls and women also doesn't run afoul of the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the court that «states may maintain women's and girls' sports for biological females.»

More than two dozen other Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes, and the decision seems certain to extend to them as well.

Left unresolved by the outcome are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.

Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 16-year-old high school sophomore in Bridgeport, West Virginia, who has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has publicly identified as a girl since age 8 and has been issued a West Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female. She is the only transgender person who has sought to compete in girls' sports in West Virginia.

Pepper-Jackson has progressed from a back-of-the-pack cross-country runner in middle school to statewide champion in the shot put. She beat the second-place finisher by 2 feet in last month's West Virginia championship meet.

In the Idaho case, Lindsay Hecox sued over the state's first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women's