Tomorrow's SCOTUS Case Is Not Just About Transgender Sports; Ruling Could Impact All Trans Rights

Though much of the reporting on the Little v. Hecox court case is about transgender sports participation, the SCOTUS ruling could impact all rights of transgender people.

Photo by Ian Hutchinson on Unsplash

Tomorrow, oral arguments will be heard in two cases that could prove pivotal for transgender rights nationwide: West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. Both stem from state laws banning transgender athletes from participating in school sports—one at the high school level, the other at the collegiate level. In each case, lower courts blocked the bans, finding that they likely violate the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause as well as Title IX’s prohibition on sex discrimination in education. Now, those rulings are under direct threat. The cases have since been brought to the Supreme Court by Republican state attorneys general with backing from Alliance Defending Freedom, a central legal force behind Project 2025. While much of the early coverage has framed the Supreme Court’s review as narrowly about sports, the stakes are far higher: depending on how the Court rules, these cases could reshape the legal framework governing transgender rights for an entire generation.

Both cases involve transgender girls who participated in sports before being targeted by state bans, and in both instances, lower courts ruled that those bans were discriminatory. In B.P.J.’s case, she transitioned in the third grade and never went through male puberty. No athlete was cut from a team to accommodate her, and claims that she possessed a “biological advantage” stretch credulity. She initially competed in running events before later moving to shot put and discus, before her participation was ultimately barred by West Virginia state law. Lindsey Hecox, meanwhile, was a collegiate runner who complied with testosterone-suppression requirements. She was banned by Idaho state law. Hecox has since attempted to withdraw from the case due to sustained harassment but has not been permitted to do so.

Now, both cases have reached the Supreme Court, just half a year after the Skrmetti ruling, which held that transgender youth do not have a constitutional right to healthcare and that states may ban gender-affirming care. While it may be tempting to view these cases as narrow disputes over sports participation, their potential impact extends far beyond athletics. Unlike Skrmetti—where the Court framed the issue as one of age classification and medical regulation, a characterization many transgender-rights advocates strongly dispute—these cases more directly confront whether transgender people are entitled to equal protection under the law. At stake are foundational questions: whether discrimination on the basis of gender identity constitutes sex discrimination, and whether Title IX offers any protection at all to transgender students. The answers to those questions would reverberate well beyond school sports, reshaping the legal landscape for transgender rights nationwide.

The two primary legal questions in the cases center on Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment—specifically, whether anti-trans policies constitute prohibited sex discrimination or impermissible status-based animus. The Supreme Court largely sidestepped those kinds of constitutional questions in Skrmetti by applying a lower standard of review to medical regulations based on age and diagnosis, but the sports cases leave far less room for avoidance. Under Title IX, the argument is relatively direct: penalizing a student for their gender identity is inseparable from their sex assigned at birth, meaning a ban on a transgender girl is fundamentally a ban based on sex. A transgender girl being banned from the bathroom but not a cisgender girl means that the transgender girl is banned by virtue of her assigned sex at birth, hence sex discrimination under Title IX. Under the Equal Protection Clause, the stakes are even higher. The Court may determine whether transgender people qualify as a quasi-suspect class entitled to heightened scrutiny, given a long history of official discrimination, the group’s relative political powerlessness, and the basic reality that being transgender bears no relationship to a person’s ability to compete, perform, or contribute to society. Ruling in the negative on this could be catastrophic for transgender people.

While lower courts have ruled in favor of transgender people, there is a new push to deny transgender people any protections whatsoever. One argument being advanced by the far right is that Title IX not only allows for discrimination against transgender people, it mandates it. Such a ruling would mean that schools and colleges across the United States could discriminate against transgender people in education… not just in school sports, but in bathrooms, locker rooms, dormitory housing, and even admissions policies—effectively legislating transgender students out of public existence and rights when it comes to educational institutions.

When it comes to equal protection, the consequences could be even more dire. The justices may decide whether sports bans violate the Equal Protection Clause based on transgender status or sex. If the court rules that transgender status is not subject to heightened scrutiny, and that discrimination against transgender people does not constitute sex discrimination, it would open the door for nearly any law targeting transgender people to be deemed constitutionally permissible. That could include adult bathroom bans, restrictions on birth certificates, housing discrimination, and more. In Skrmetti, the justices sidestepped this question, declining to rule on equal protection and instead anchoring their decision in age and medical-diagnosis classifications. In the cases heard tomorrow, that sidestep may be harder to justify—and with a court that has repeatedly shown an intent to narrow transgender rights, this represents especially dangerous territory.

All eyes will be on the Supreme Court as oral arguments unfold tomorrow. Outside the building, advocates from across the country—including the ACLU, Lambda Legal, GSA Network, and the Transgender Law Center—are expected to rally in defense of transgender students whose lives and futures hinge on this case. A decision is likely months away, but its impact will be immediate and far-reaching. What the court chooses to say about equal protection and Title IX will shape not only the fate of transgender athletes, but the legal standing of transgender people in public life for years to come.