Three Supreme Court Cases Targeting LGBTQ+ People See Movement This Week

From sports to passports, these cases may determine the vitality of trans rights in the U.S. for generations to come.

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

The kick off of the Supreme Court 2025-2026 term could be among the most consequential for transgender Americans yet.

Several cases on Monday and Tuesday progressed before the court, ones that cumulatively touch upon every aspect of the rights and lives of trans Americans. Here’s a breakdown of what those cases really mean.

Chiles v. Salazar

(You can listen to Tuesday’s oral arguments in full here.)

In this case, the Supreme Court will determine whether conversion therapy bans violate the free speech rights of therapists. This practice has been debunked by every single reputable, relevant medical organization; there is no evidence that it is effective, and even more, it often leads to lifelong psychological harm, such as increased risk of self-harm and suicide.

Conversion therapy is banned in over 20 states. But Chiles, the face of a years-long legal campaign by hate groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom, argues that Colorado’s anti-conversion therapy laws violate her First Amendment rights as a Christian. On that front, Chiles filed a complaint against the state and Patty Salazar, executive director of the Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies.

Lower courts previously denied Chiles a preliminary injunction to block the state’s anti-conversion therapy law. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled it regulates professional conduct that only incidentally involves speech—meaning the state is well within its right to constrain it. But Chiles successfully petitioned SCOTUS to review the case.

CNN’s Supreme Court correspondent John Fritze wrote on Tuesday:

During a surprisingly low-key and short 90-minute session, several justices appeared to reject the idea the state can regulate “talk therapy” the same way it may regulate medical conduct. Much of the debate seemed to focus on how Colorado would lose, rather than whether it would do so.

Chief Justice John Roberts pointed to prior Supreme Court decisions in which the court declined to carve out a different First Amendment approach to professional speech. It was a theme several of the court’s conservatives returned to repeatedly.

“Just because they’re engaged in conduct doesn’t mean that their words aren’t protected,” Roberts said.

But the liberal bloc of the court seemed skeptical about plaintiff Kaley Chiles’ standing on the matter anyway, given that Colorado did not take action against her practice, nor did they say they were they going to—her practice does not reportedly engage in the aversion-based, non-consensual conversion practices that are outlawed. And so, similar to 303 Creative v. Elenis, in which conservative legal activists supposedly faked a story about a vendor being forced into serving same-sex couples, it seems Chiles poses yet another manufactured and perhaps non-existent claim to harm.

This comes at the heels of the devastating Skrmetti decision from June, which ruled in favor of a Tennessee’s law that barred trans minors from equal access to health care as their cisgender peers.

The impact of all this? A ruling in favor of Chiles could enable more providers to make a profit off of dangerous and unscientific anti-LGBT medical practices, expand religious exemptions to cover dangerous psychological practices, and subject impressionable, vulnerable youth to “treatments” that can cause irreversible damage. It would also likely open the floodgates for even more medical discrimination, allowing providers to operate on religious grounds as opposed to scientific or professional principles.

Trump v. Orr

This so-called shadow docket case is a last ditch attempt by the White House to impose Trump’s anti-trans passport policies onto the masses after a lower court halted the practice in Orr v. Trump.

“The lawsuit argues the policy is arbitrary and capricious, violates the right to travel and right to privacy under the Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and compels speech from transgender, nonbinary, and intersex passport holders in violation of their First Amendment rights,” a statement by the ACLU reads.

Now, Trump wants the Justices to grant an emergency stay, which would block the lower court’s preliminary injunction.

On Tuesday, attorneys for a cohort of trans, non-binary and intersex Americans at the center of the case fired back at the Trump Administration, who is asking the Supreme Court to lift the court order against the passport policy enforcement. The federal government denied the claims that Executive Order No. 14168, dubbed “Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government,” is motivated by animus, or that it is discriminatory based on sex or “trans-identifying status.” But in court filings, human rights lawyers argued the policy was “likely motivated by impermissible animus against transgender people” and that “the government admitted [...] a ‘core’ purpose of the Passport Policy is ‘outing’ transgender people.”

The order instructed federal agencies to require that government-issued identification documents, including passports, reflect an individual’s sex assigned at birth.

“The Passport Policy is unlawful and unconstitutional,” the original Feb. 2025 complaint reads. “It cannot be justified under any level of judicial scrutiny, and it wrongly seeks to erase the reality that transgender, intersex, and nonbinary people exist today as they always have.”

Since then, many trans and intersex people have felt the whiplash of their identities being recognized then not; their documents changed and then reverted as the case escalated through the judicial system. Many faced difficulty obtaining passports or were sent passports with the incorrect gender marker. And a federal court issued temporary relief to passport holders who wish to change their gender marker back in June.

Trump officials have indicated their intent to revert passports that were corrected under the ruling. This leaves the very legal status of trans Americans in the balance—their ability to travel, not only abroad but domestically; their ability to verify their identity for government purposes; and even their ability to vote as per “REAL ID” policies, which loom large ahead of the upcoming election.

Little v. Hecox + West Virginia v. BPJ

The newly kicked-off Supreme Court term has also ushered in questions about two cases, Hecox and BPJ. They stem from Idaho and West Virginia, respectively, and surround transgender girls who wanted to play on school sports teams. Together, they challenge state-mandated anti-trans sports bans on the grounds that they violate Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment; their subsequent rulings may determine the gender-based protections that trans people do (or don’t) receive going ahead, and their eventual ruling could impact issues far beyond sports.

Lindsay Hecox is a student at Boise State University in Idaho. Despite taking hormones to comply with athletic policies to compete in women’s events, she faced removal because of her state’s virulently anti-trans sports policy, the first of its kind when it was passed in 2020.

She filed suit alongside her co-plaintiff, Jane Doe, an anonymous student athlete who is not trans, but says that, due to her “masculine” presentation—an athletic build, a social group of mostly guys, a wardrobe devoid of many skirts or dresses—she faces imminent risk of invasive exams to legitimize her sex in the eyes of the law.

“Jane does not want to have to go through an invasive or uncomfortable test just to prove that she meets the state’s new criteria for being deemed a girl,” the initial complaint reads. She finds it horrifying that a doctor might have to examine her genitals just so she can play sports.”

Similarly, BPJ—also known as Becky Pepper-Jackson—is a teenage runner in West Virginia. Her own state passed an anti-trans sports ban in 2021. Lower courts found the law violated her rights, but the state challenged these findings, until it, too, landed on the docket of SCOTUS.

Monday marked the start of the court’s 2025-2026 term, solidifying these legal battlegrounds even as Hecox files to render her case as moot. Among other factors, she said public backlash has been too intense, and she no longer desires to play sports at her school.

“From the beginning of this case, I have come under negative public scrutiny from certain quarters,” she said in a declaration submitted to the court. “I am afraid that if I continue my lawsuit, I will personally be subjected to harassment that will negatively impact my mental health, my safety, and my ability to graduate as soon as possible.”

It remains to be seen whether the court will grant her request. The sports issue will be heard regardless, through Doe or Pepper-Jackson’s legal fights, and its impact will be felt by trans people across America. Its scope has the potential to reach beyond mere fields and courts, but also to trans people’s claims to equal protections across the board.