US Supreme Court clears way for transgender sports bans

WASHINGTON, June 30 : The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way on Tuesday for states to impose restrictions on transgender student athletes, upholding laws in West Virginia and Idaho banning them from female sports teams - a contentious issue enmeshed in the nation's culture wars.

The justices overturned decisions by lower courts siding with transgender students who challenged the bans in the two states as violating the U.S. Constitution and a federal anti-discrimination law.

The Idaho and West Virginia laws designate sports teams at public schools including universities according to "biological sex" and bar "students of the male sex" from female teams. Twenty-five other states have similar laws on the books. 

The court decided 9-0 that the state laws do not violate the Title IX civil rights statute that bars discrimination in education "on the basis of sex."

The justices, however, divided along ideological lines, with the six conservative justices in the majority, that the laws also do not violate the Constitution's 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law. The three liberal justices said a factual dispute in the West Virginia case should have precluded resolving that issue.

The ruling was authored by conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

"Consistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the states may maintain women's and girls' sports for biological females. They may determine eligibility for women's and girls' sports based on biological sex. The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women's and girls' sports throughout America," Kavanaugh wrote.

Republican President Donald Trump's administration, which has cracked down on transgender rights, has backed the states