The US Supreme Court has ruled that states can ban transgender women from competing in female school and college sports.
The court considered cases from students in two different states who had challenged bans on participation. The two states, Idaho and West Virginia, enacted laws that required public school and college sports teams to compete in accordance with their sex recorded at birth.
One of the two challenges said the ban violates equal rights protections in the US Constitution. The other said it contradicts civil rights laws.
More than two dozen states have enacted bans since Idaho did so in 2020. President Donald Trump celebrated the decision in a social media post as a “BIG WIN”.
Under those state bans, a transgender woman – a biological male who identifies as a woman – is not permitted to compete in female sports at schools and colleges.
All nine justices on the court decided the state bans do not violate a civil rights law called Title IX that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools.
But the judges were split along ideological lines on whether the bans contravene the Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law.
The six conservative justices said it did not violate the constitution, while the three liberal justices disagreed.
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