After Supreme Court ruling, what's next in fight over trans athletes?

WASHINGTON − Handing down the Supreme Court's big decision in the most significant culture war case of the term, Justice Brett Kavanaugh took umbrage at his liberal colleagues' "assumed monopoly" on understanding how the nation's debate over transgender athletes affects those students.

"We are acutely aware of the difficulties sometimes faced by boys who identify as girls (and by girls who identify as boys) in middle school, high school, and beyond," Kavanaugh wrote in the court's June 30 ruling that says states are free to ban transgender girls from competing on female teams.

But the court must also, he said, consider how their participation raises safety and fairness concerns for members of a team.

It likely won't be long before the justices will again have to weigh such factors.

The Supreme Court left open the question of whether states are required – rather than merely allowed − to keep transgender women and girls off female teams. That legal issue is separately working its way up to the high court.

The justices also avoided a broad ruling that would have had ramifications far beyond the athletic field for transgender rights.

Here's a look at some of the key divisions and flashpoints in the case.

'Coach K' - Brett Kavanaugh - says he empathizes with both sides of the controversy

Kavanaugh, who coached his daughters' girls basketball teams for years, has said his role as "Coach K" keeps him in touch with the real world. He ended his 29-page opinion by defending the reasons for excluding transgender girls from female sports teams, and also expressing compassion for transgender students.

Anyone asking what's the harm in letting a transgender girl compete, he said, "misunderstands the nature and reality of sports," which are "highly competitive and generally zero sum."

Every player who wins a spot on a team, on a starting lineup or on the medals podium is taking the spot from someone else, he wrote.

But while noting that 27 states have decided that females shouldn't have to compete against anyone who is, as he called it, a "biological male", Kavanaugh also showed concern for transgender students.

Pointing out that most of the athletes who have been at the white-hot center of the debate are teenagers or young adults, Kavanaugh said the desire to play sports "warrants respects."

"No student-athlete on either side of the issue, whether a biological female or transgender, deserves to be ostracized or vilified," he wrote.

Clarence Thomas takes more aggressive position, says sex can't be changed

If Kavanaugh sought to temper the discussion, Justice Clarence Thomas wasn't having it.

"A man does not have a legal right to compete against women just because he believes that he is a woman," Thomas wrote in a concurring opinion.

One of the court's most conservative members, Thomas echoed the Trump administration's policy that there only two sexes, which are unchangeable and biologically determined.

Using language that obscures that reality, Thomas wrote, "is to lie to the public."

LGBTQ+ advocates said they will continue to fight

Civil rights groups that fought state bans consoled themselves that the decision could have been a lot worse for their side.

The court ruled only that states may ban transgender girls and women from female teams under both the Constitution and a federal law barring sex discrimination in education, not that they must.

The court also limited its ruling to the realm of sports, leaving for another day fights over bathroom and locker room access for trans students.

And the court's majority did not say whether transgender people as a group are entitled to stronger legal protections under the Constitution.

"What that means is that we can continue to advocate for the rights of transgender students under Title IX in other areas," said Chris Erchull, an attorney at GLAD Law.

Trump administration pressing ahead

Conservative groups, however, believe they have the momentum.

"Blue states with boys on girls' podiums . . . you're next," Kristen Waggoner, president of the Alliance Defending Freedom, posted on X after the ruling.

The group, which helped defend Idaho's and West Virginia's bans, has gone after Connecticut for allowing transgender females to compete in girls' athletic events.

The Trump administration has likewise tried to withhold federal funding from states that let transgender females on girls' teams.

While the administration had urged the court to only decide for now that bans are allowed and not get into whether they're required, officials are already anticipating the next round.

"We look forward to ensuring that every educational institution in America abides by the law of the land," Education Secretary Linda McMahon said after the decision.

But Joshua Block, the American Civil Liberties Union attorney who argued the case for the West Virginia student challenge that state's law, saw reasons to be optimistic that the court may not eventually rule that bans are required.

"The decision, over and over and over again, emphasizes that this is a policy question that different states can come to different conclusions on," he told reporters last week.

Neil Gorsuch explains why past LGBTQ+ win didn't help here

Despite the headwinds transgender rights advocates faced going into the case, they had hoped to build on their surprise 2020 victory when the court sided with three employees who were fired because they were gay or transgender.

A 6-3 majority ruled in a case called Bostock v. Clayton County that when the Civil Rights Act of 1964 barred workplace discrimination on the basis of "sex," that also covered sexual orientation and gender identity.

Block argued the same reasoning should be applied to the federal law barring sex discrimination in educational programs, Title IX.

But Justice Neil Gorsuch, the conservative justice who wrote the 2020 decision, explained why he reached a different conclusion in this case.

Unlike the Civil Rights Act, Gorsuch wrote in a concurring opinion, Title IX specifically allows the sexes to be treated differently for school sports.

"I appreciate that questions surrounding the participation of transgender athletes in women's and girls' sports are subjects of intense debate nationwide. The questions surrounding Bostock were too," he wrote. "But as there, our charge here is not to resolve those debates, only to apply faithfully directives found in a federal statute."

Liberal justices both agreed with and disputed the ruling

The court's three liberal justices did not completely dissent from the conservative majority's opinion.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, writing for the minority, agreed that Title IX allows for sex-segregated sports teams.

But she spent many more pages explaining why the West Virginia student should have been given a chance to prove to a court that the medications she's taken to block the onset of puberty and secondary sex characteristics means she lacks any inherent athletic advantage.

Sotomayor said she was not taking a position on whether the student could "show that the science is sufficiently on her side." But the Constitution's guarantee that people in similar situations should be treated equally should give her the opportunity to try, Sotomayor wrote.

Kavanaugh countered that states don't have to make case-by-case exceptions for their bans because they are "constitutionally justified by the vitally important interests in safety and competitive fairness."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY Own: After Supreme Court ruling, what's next in fight over trans athletes?

Reporting by Maureen Groppe, USA TODAY / USA TODAY Own

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

Copyright Reuters or USA Today Network via Reuters Connect

This story was originally published July 8, 2026 at 7:46 AM.