What to know about the trans sports cases the Supreme Court will hear Tuesday

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What to know about the trans sports cases the Supreme Court will hear Tuesday

https://www.advocate.com/news/transgender-sports-cases-supreme-court 🔗

Trudy Ring (12 Jan 2026)

Transgender women athletes have been the subject of much debate over the past few years, and this Tuesday they'll be the subject of arguments at the U.S. Supreme Court.

The high court is considering Idaho's and West Virginia's laws that bar trans women and girls from female sports. In both cases — Hecox v. Idaho and B.P.J. v. West Virginia — lower courts have granted injunctions blocking implementation of the laws and allowing trans athletes to compete. The states are appealing.

Lambda Legal CEO Kevin Jennings told The Advocate he is "to be 100 percent honest, anxious" about how the high court will rule.

"This is not the friendliest Supreme Court to LGBTQ+ rights," he said. "But we will take a stand for what's right, and the chips will fall where they may."

The arguments in favor of trans inclusion will invoke the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. The latter bans sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding. Democratic presidential administrations have held that sex discrimination under Title IX includes discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, while Republicans, especially Donald Trump, have held that it does not. (In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that another federal law, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in banning sex discrimination in employment, also banned discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. But the makeup of the court has changed since then.)