WASHINGTON −Supreme CourtJustice Brett Kavanaugh seemed to draw from personal experience coaching his daughter's basketball team whenthe high court debated on Jan. 13whetherstates can ban transgender girlsfrom playing on female teams.
"I hate, hate that a kid who wants to play sports might not be able to play sports. I hate that," Kavanaugh told the lawyer representing thetransgender student challenging West Virginia's ban. "But it's kind of a zero-sum game for a lot of teams."
If a transgender girl makes a team or a starting line-up, she will bump someone else, he said, backing the argument for "fairness" that has driven the bans passed by more than half the states.
Although the court's three liberal justices focused, during the more than three hours of oral arguments, on whether transgender females should have the right to prove they don't have physical advantages after receiving medical treatments, a majority of the court's six conservatives seemed likely touphold bans in West Virginia and Idaho.
A demonstrator waves a transgender pride flag outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day justices are expected to hear oral arguments in two cases concerning efforts to enforce state laws banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools, in Washington, D.C., January 13, 2026." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
A man holds a placard outside the U.S. Supreme Court, on the day justices are expected to hear oral arguments in two cases concerning efforts to enforce state laws banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools, in Washington, D.C., January 13, 2026." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
A supporter of the "Democrats for an Informed Approach to Gender" (DIAG) association holds a placard outside the U.S. Supreme Court, on the day justices are expected to hear oral arguments in two cases concerning efforts to enforce state laws banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools, in Washington, D.C., January 13, 2026." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
A person holds a placard outside the U.S. Supreme Court, on the day justices are expected to hear oral arguments in two cases concerning efforts to enforce state laws banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools, in Washington, D.C., January 13, 2026." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> 
A person holds a rainbow-colored umbrella outside the U.S. Supreme Court, on the day justices are expected to hear oral arguments in two cases concerning efforts to enforce state laws banning transgender athletes from female sports teams at public schools, in Washington, D.C., January 13, 2026." style="max-width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:6px; margin:10px 0;" loading="lazy" /> Supreme Court hears arguments on laws banning trans athletes. See photos
A demonstrator waves a transgender pride flag outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day justices are expected to hearoral arguments in two cases concerning efforts to enforce state laws banning transgender athletesfrom female sports teams at public schools, in Washington, D.C., January 13, 2026.
Lawyers for those states, as well as the Justice Department, argued that the laws pass legal muster because they're fair when applied to nearly all students who were designated male at birth.
Chief JusticeJohn Roberts, a key conservative because of his 2020 vote that transgender people are protected from discrimination in the workplace, said allowing challenges to the state laws from a fairly small group of people could have implications in areas beyond school sports teams.
"If we adopted that, that would have to apply across board and not simply to the area of athletics," Roberts said.
Here are seven takeaways from the Supreme Court arguments:
'Are they bigots?' Conservative justices question fairness for athletes who aren't transgender
Several conservative justices suggested transgender participation in women's sports jeopardizes fairness for non-transgender athletes.
JusticeSamuel Alitoappeared to defend non-transgender women athletes who oppose transgender inclusion and face accusations that they are irrational or hateful.
"Are they bigots? Are they deluded in thinking that they are subjected to unfair competition?" Alito asked Kathleen Hartnett, the lawyer representing an Idaho transgender student who has challenged Idaho's ban.
Hartnett said she would never call someone that, and was focused on whether the Idaho ban is constitutional.
Kavanaugh, an appointee of PresidentDonald Trump, praised the growth of women's and girls' sports in the past 50 years, and said he worried about undermining that with transgender participation in female categories.
"Some states, and the federal government, and the NCAA, and the Olympic Committee – so these are a variety of groups who study this issue – think that allowing transgender women and girls to participate will undermine or reverse that amazing success," he said. "I think we can't sweep that aside."
Hartnett said the real question is a scientific one: Is there an unfair biological advantage for transgender women and girls? She argued that transgender athletes can mitigate their sex-based advantage by reducing the level of testosterone circulating in their bodies.
Liberal justices pushed against categorical bans
The court's three liberal justices fought an uphill battle to convince their colleagues that transgender students should have the chance to argue why the bans don't apply to their particular circumstances.
JusticeSonia Sotomayor, an Obama appointee, asked a Justice Department attorney about his position that the state bans are okay because they're fair when applied to 99% of biological males.
"The numbers don't talk about the human being," she said.
Hashim Mooppan, the U.S. Principal Deputy Solicitor General, said those challenging the bans would have to show the laws are unfair against a "substantial enough percentage" of people.
"Why does it have to be that many people? Why? Why?" JusticeKetanji Brown Jackson, a Biden appointee, asked.
She said if a law is unconstitutional for one person, it shouldn't matter whether the person is outnumbered by the rest of the people covered by the law.
Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst told JusticeElena Kagan, an Obama appointee, it would be unworkable for courts to order exceptions to laws based on a class of litigants any time judges thought they didn't make sense.
Hurst argued litigants could keep moving the goal lines. For example, he said, if a law was based on taking testosterone, a transgender athlete could argue they are taking so little it provides no advantage.
"It's going to be enormously burdensome and the state can never win," Hurst said. "You'd have to make as many exceptions as courts thought you needed to make."
Kagan tried to mitigate the loss for transgender students
Perhaps anticipating that a majority of the court is going to uphold the bans, Kagan pressed the lawyers on how the court could write that opinion without requiring states without bans to impose them.
That issue is important because President Trump has moved tocut off federal fundingfrom schools that allow transgender athletes to compete on female teams.
California, for example, is fighting that requirement.
Kavanaugh, one of the conservative justices, said he wanted to be "crystal clear" about whether deciding in favor of Idaho and West Virginia would affect California's fight.
Mooppan, the Justice Department attorney, said the court could back the bans in a way that doesn't settle the issue of whether they're required under Title IX, the 1972 federal law that bans sex-based discrimination.
"I don't think if you adopt the argument I'm making here today, their hands are going to be tied," he said of California.
Hurst, Idaho's solicitor general, likewise told Kavanaugh he hasn't been "persuaded by a constitutional theory that would let us use the equal protection clause to impose our policy on other states."
'Infamy': Sotomayor suggests allowing transgender athlete to drop case
The plaintiff in one of the two cases before the court, Lindsay Hecox, has stopped playing women's sports and now says she wants the justices to simply dismiss her case.
Hecox originally sued because Idaho's ban blocked her from trying out for the Boise State University track and cross-country teams.
Sotomayor said Hecox clearly isn't trying to maneuver herself to prevent the conservative-majority court from potentially upholding transgender athlete bans. The justice noted that, even if the court dismisses Hecox's case, it would still be able to rule in the separate West Virginia case.
"So we don't have a subterfuge in attempting to stop the court from reaching an important legal question," Sotomayor said.
In that context, Sotomayor asked Hurst, Idaho's solicitor general, why the court shouldn't let Hecox get out of what will be a historic Supreme Court ruling, as a matter of compassion.
"Do you dispute that having a case named after you makes your infamy ... live forever?" Sotomayor asked.
Sotomayor said that famous cases draw attention to the named plaintiffs who won or lost them.
"Is it the right thing to do?" she pressed, over the prospect of forcing an unwilling plaintiff to continue with their case.
Hurst said the Supreme Court has already ruled in previous cases that, after a certain point in litigation, plaintiffs can't get their cases dismissed unless they show the underlying issue behind their case is unlikely to re-occur.
"There is a reasonable basis to doubt whether Hecox's current plans are the final plans," he said.
Celebrities, parents and kids rally outside the Supreme Court
Elliot Page, a transgender actor, appeared outside the Supreme Court as the justices debated the state bans. But the crowd of protesters was also chock full of everyday people who felt passionately on both sides of the issue.
"As a dad, watching my kids join and participate in sports and other activities was so fulfilling, knowing that they were enjoying the same positive experiences that I have, I cannot fathom how upsetting it would be to be told you can't participate, either as a kid or a parent," said Neil Giles. "Our transgender and gender non−conforming kids deserve the same right to participate as every other kid."
At an opposing rally, parents expressed concern that no matter how hard their daughters trained, transgender girls would have a biological advantage.
"It's not fair and it's not lawful," said Stacey Schieffelin of the America First Policy Initiative. "It deprives the opportunity for women to break records, win scholarships and become the true champions they deserve to be. It strips girls of privacy and threatens their physical safety, and it cuts straight through the heart of what Title IX was designed to do: protect young women."
2020 transgender discrimination case overshadows athletic case
Roberts, the chief justice, signaled that he may view this case differently from one in 2020, when he joined the court's liberals in ruling that transgender people cannot be discriminated against at work.
That 2020 case, calledBostock v Clayton County, Georgia, was about whether firing someone because they are transgender is discriminating on the basis of sex. Justice Neil Gorsuch, another conservative closely watched in the current case, wrote the earlier decision.
Roberts asked whether a sex-based classification is necessarily a transgender classification.
West Virginia Solicitor General Michael Williams said the justices could uphold his state's law banning transgender athletes while staying true to the 2020 ruling. Laws focused on someone's biological sex are different from laws defining transgender students, Williams said. He argued the law should be upheld because a "biological boy identifying as a boy applies in the very same way as a biological boy identifying as a girl."
Kavanaugh asked the Justice Department lawyer why Bostock doesn't matter to the two latest cases.
Mooppan said the state law classifies on the basis of biological sex. "The person's gender identity is wholly irrelevant to how the law applies," he said.
But Joshua Block, the lawyer for a transgender student, said arguing that Title IX protects only groups of people – rather than individuals – when sex is the reason for adverse treatment "takes a wrecking ball to the text of Title IX and the structure of this court's anti-discrimination precedents."
Lawyer: The real issue is whether transgender athlete has an unfair advantage
The lawyer for transgender athlete Becky Pepper-Jackson in West Virginia said the justices should send the case back to U.S. District Court for a trial to determine whether she has an advantage over teammates or rivals who were identified as girls at birth.
The lawyer, Block, said Pepper-Jackson has received puberty-delaying medication and estrogen, so she has no physical advantage over her peers. Block said excluding her wouldn't make the female teams safer or more fair, as the law's defenders contend.
"I really do want to make a pitch for resolving it based on the facts," Block said. "Because, look, if they're right about the facts, then we should lose."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:Why transgender athlete bans are likely to be upheld by Supreme Court
