{"id":215215,"date":"2025-09-29T12:07:49","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T16:07:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/?p=215215"},"modified":"2025-09-30T15:57:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-30T19:57:18","slug":"whats-at-stake-as-the-supreme-court-takes-up-transgender-sports-bans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/lgbtq-rights\/whats-at-stake-as-the-supreme-court-takes-up-transgender-sports-bans","title":{"rendered":"What\u2019s at Stake as the Supreme Court Takes Up Transgender Sports Bans"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":109,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"metadata":[1764,1763,1756,1750,2024,1752,1755,1769,1753,1768],"class_list":["post-215215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","metadata-advocacy-news","metadata-context","metadata-explainer","metadata-layout","metadata-length","metadata-longform","metadata-narrative-frame","metadata-national-affiliate-staff","metadata-plain-text","metadata-voice"],"acf":{"header_layout":"full-bleed","header_image":215831,"mobile_header_image":215833,"description":"How one West Virginia teenager could shape the future of Title IX and civil rights protections for transgender youth.","authors":[49441],"components":[{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"Over the last five years, politicians across the country have targeted transgender people and our families. They\u2019ve banned our health care, censored our speech, and made schools less safe for transgender students. One of the most consistent focus areas for many of these politicians has been the rights of transgender student athletes, specifically the right of transgender girls, to play with other girls. While the overall number of transgender athletes is extremely small\u2013most states have fewer than a handful of transgender students playing sports among 10s of thousands of student athletes\u2013 politicians have introduced hundreds of bills over the last few years targeting their ability to play.\r\n\r\nNow, the Supreme Court will hear our challenge against a state law that categorically bans transgender students from girl\u2019s teams. Politicians hope to use the case to legitimize a broad range of discrimination against transgender people (and all LGBTQ people), excluding us not just from sports teams but from civil rights protections and pushing us further out of public life altogether."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"Before the Court: BPJ v. West Virginia","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"Becky Pepper-Jackson of West Virginia is just like any other 15-year-old. She loves spending time with her friends, playing with her brothers, and is active in her school\u2019s band and track & field team, throwing discus and shotput. But under a ban passed by the West Virginia state legislature, Pepper-Jackson would be prohibited from playing on the girls\u2019 team. \u201cShe likes to do the best in everything, be it algebra or running or shot put or discus,\u201d her mother told NBC News. \u201cShe tries to excel in everything that she does, just like any other kid.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhile Pepper-Jackson is the only openly transgender athlete in the state of West Virginia, she has become the focus of relentless attacks by politicians in the state, including the state\u2019s governor. With the help of Lambda Legal and Cooley LLP, the ACLU and the ACLU of West Virginia filed a lawsuit on behalf of Pepper-Jackson and her mother challenging the ban on the grounds it violates her rights under Title IX \u2013 the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in public schools \u2013 and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"How Many Transgender Athletes Are There?","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"There is no comprehensive count of transgender student athletes in K-12, collegiate, or professional sports in the United States, but what we do know is that they represent a tiny fraction of athletes overall. The president of the NCAA even recently told Congress, \u201cless than 10\u201d (and not all of them transgender women) of the more than 500,000 college athletes in the country are openly transgender.\r\n\r\nNonetheless, they have become the focus of a relentless media campaign designed to make their participation seem like a threat to girls who are not transgender. The goal of this campaign is not only dividing us against one another, it\u2019s to secure a sweeping legal precedent that endangers transgender people (and other people, including gay, lesbian and bisexual people, and all women) across our lives, not just in sports."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"What\u2019s at Stake at The Supreme Court","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"The court is likely to rule on whether the state bans targeting transgender students violate either Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause. What we don\u2019t know\u2013and won\u2019t know until that ruling is handed down\u2013is whether that ruling will be narrowly tailored to the context of athletics or implicate a broad range of rights for transgender people."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"single-image","single-image":{"":null,"image-group":{"image":215836,"":null,"caption":"","credit":"Credit: Scout Tufankjian","link-settings":"none","url":""},"width":"standard","alignment":"left"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"Many of the political attacks on transgender people have focused on areas of the law where we already experience discrimination\u2013access to public bathrooms or the sex designation that goes on documents like driver\u2019s licenses and passports, for example. Depending on the precise language of the court\u2019s ruling, it could likewise implicate our fight for equality in those contexts and potentially many more, like our access to health care and our safety while incarcerated.\r\n\r\nThis is why, even though the number of transgender students in athletics is small, their right to play has become a central focus of politicians who want to push transgender people out of public life altogether. Their hope is that a Supreme Court ruling against the rights of girls like Pepper-Jackson will allow them to discriminate against transgender people in many more contexts and, eventually, deny us our freedom to be ourselves entirely."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"\u201cFairness\u201d in Sex-Based Competition","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"First, it\u2019s important to recognize that a girl like Pepper-Jackson is not trying to \u201ccheat\u201d her way into women\u2019s sports or take away opportunities from other girls. Who she is on the playing field is who is with her friends, her family, and in her community, and transgender youth and their families want the same thing for their future that we all do\u2013safe schools, strong communities, and equal opportunities to succeed.\r\n\r\nSecond, transgender girls are not \u201cbiological males\u201d<\/a> as many politicians accuse them of being. In fact, the states in both these cases have tried to exclude any scientific evidence about the impacts of gender-affirming medical care that girls like Pepper-Jackson relies on because, ultimately, they do not care about things like hormone levels or muscle mass; they want to exploit concern for women athletes and widely-held assumptions about sex and gender to define transgender people\u2019s identities and rights for us while falsely claiming the \u201cscience\u201d is on their side.\r\n\r\nLastly, as any competitive athlete can tell you, all athletes carry advantages and disadvantages depending on the sport, their background, their experience, their genetics, and their physical ability. Excluding transgender girls on the basis of advantages they may or may not have, while ignoring the wide varieties of body types and physical ability among all women, is both discriminatory to transgender girls and relies on very old stereotypes of women as inherently petite and weak (something that anyone who watches women\u2019s sports can tell you is very far from the truth)."}},{"acf_fc_layout":"heading","heading":{"":null,"text":"Protecting Women\u2019s Sports by Fighting Real Inequities","anchor":"","sub-heading":"","type":"h2","heading-style":"standard"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":{"text":"Bans such as West Virginia\u2019s are opposed by Billie Jean King, Megan Rapinoe, Sue Bird, Brianna Turner, Dawn Staley, the Women\u2019s Sports Foundation, the National Women\u2019s Basketball Players Association, and many more allies to girls like Pepper-Jackson. In contrast, the bans are being defended by the same conservative activists that overturned Roe v. Wade<\/i> and oppose marriage equality for same-sex couples\u2013not because they care about women\u2019s sports but because transgender people\u2019s very existence violates their own ideology.\r\n\r\nAthletics is a critical part of the lives of millions of youth in the United States. It helps them learn teamwork and dedication while helping them become an active and thriving member of their broader community. This is especially true for kids who are isolated, bullied, and ostracized by their peers\u2013playing sports is often a way for adolescents to overcome the sense they\u2019re just too \u201cdifferent\u201d from others to make friends and succeed.\r\n\r\nBut more than fifty years after Title IX, women athletes continue to face real and widespread barriers\u2013from racial disparities in athletic opportunities to unequal pay for professionals and harassment and abuse\u2013but the participation of transgender girls like Pepper-Jacksons simply is not one of them. We can win the future all women and girls deserve by playing on the same team for fairness, safety, and equal opportunities and rejecting efforts by politicians to divide us."}}],"featured_cases_section":{"enable_featured_cases":false,"title":"Featured Cases","description":"","featured_cases":null},"action":[211030],"issues":[46567,46569],"related_content_cases":[63013],"related_content_documents":"","related_content_publications":"","related_affiliates":"","content_layout":"standard","theme":"light","drupal_nid":""},"yoast_head":"\nAmerican Civil Liberties Union<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How one West Virginia teenager could shape the future of Title IX and civil rights protections for transgender youth.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What\u2019s at Stake as the Supreme Court Takes Up Transgender Sports Bans | ACLU\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How one West Virginia teenager could shape the future of Title IX and civil rights protections for transgender youth.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/lgbtq-rights\/whats-at-stake-as-the-supreme-court-takes-up-transgender-sports-bans\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"American Civil Liberties Union\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-29T16:07:49+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-30T19:57:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/assets.aclu.org\/live\/uploads\/2025\/09\/becky-pepper-jackson-social.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Gillian Branstetter\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:image\" content=\"https:\/\/assets.aclu.org\/live\/uploads\/2025\/09\/becky-pepper-jackson-social.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@aclu\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/lgbtq-rights\/whats-at-stake-as-the-supreme-court-takes-up-transgender-sports-bans\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/lgbtq-rights\/whats-at-stake-as-the-supreme-court-takes-up-transgender-sports-bans\",\"name\":\"What\u2019s at Stake as the Supreme Court Takes Up Transgender Sports Bans | ACLU\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-29T16:07:49+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-30T19:57:18+00:00\",\"description\":\"How one West Virginia teenager could shape the future of Title IX and civil rights protections for transgender youth.\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/news\/lgbtq-rights\/whats-at-stake-as-the-supreme-court-takes-up-transgender-sports-bans\"]}],\"author\":{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#\/schema\/person\/gillian-branstetter\",\"name\":\"Gillian Branstetter\",\"jobTitle\":\"Communications Strategist, \",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/bio\/gillian-branstetter\"}},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.aclu.org\/\",\"name\":\"American Civil Liberties Union\",\"description\":\"The ACLU dares to create a more perfect union \u2014 beyond one person, party, or side. 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