Melania Trump is not part of this ruling, but the Supreme Court is. On Tuesday, the Court said states may bar transgender women from women’s sports teams at secondary schools, colleges, and universities.
The opinion was written by Brett Kavanaugh and joined by all five of the Court’s remaining Republicans. The three Democratic justices dissented, and Sonia Sotomayor said the case should have gone back to lower courts for more factfinding.
West Virginia v. B.P.J.
Two trans sports cases had been consolidated under West Virginia v. B.P.J., after lower-court rulings that were fairly favorable to the plaintiffs. The decision now leaves more than two dozen states with laws barring trans athletes from teams that do not align with their sex assigned at birth on firmer ground.
Kavanaugh had signaled two years ago, during oral arguments in another case, where he stood. He said trans women would gain a right "to play in women’s and girls’ sports … notwithstanding the competitive fairness and safety issues that have been vocally raised by some female athletes."
United States v. Skrmetti
The Court’s direction on transgender rights had already sharpened in United States v. Skrmetti. In 2025, Amy Coney Barrett wrote that "trans people do not enjoy any constitutional protections beyond those enjoyed by any other American."
That same legal climate shaped Tuesday’s result. The majority’s ruling now gives states a clearer path to enforce sports bans, while leaving opponents to argue that those laws should have been tested more fully on the facts before the Supreme Court settled the issue.
Lindsay Hecox
Lindsay Hecox also shaped the case’s path to Tuesday’s ruling. After the Court said it would hear her case, she asked the justices to dismiss it, but Kavanaugh’s opinion denied that request in a footnote.
That leaves the ruling in place for schools and universities covered by state laws of this kind, and it leaves the dissent’s demand for more factfinding unresolved inside the Supreme Court itself.
