Supreme Court seems likely to uphold state bans on transgender athletes in girls and women's sports

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Tuesday appeared ready to deal another setback to transgender people and uphold state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams.

The court's conservative majority, which has repeatedly ruled against transgender Americans in the past year, signaled during more than three hours of arguments it would rule the state bans don't violate either the Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

More than two dozen Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes. Lower courts had ruled for the transgender athletes who challenged laws in Idaho and West Virginia.

The legal fight is playing out against the backdrop of a broad effort by President Donald Trump to target transgender Americans, beginning on the first day of his second term and including the ouster of transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

The justices are evaluating claims of sex discrimination lodged by transgender people versus the need for fair competition for women and girls, the main argument made by the states.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who coached his daughters in girls basketball, seemed concerned about a ruling that might undo the effects of Title IX, which has produced dramatic growth in girls and women's sports. Kavanaugh called Title IX an “amazing” and “inspiring” success.

Some girls and women might lose a medal in a competition with transgender athletes, which Kavanaugh called a harm “we can’t sweep aside.”

The three liberal justices seemed focused on trying to marshal a court majority in support of a narrow ruling that would allow the individual transgender athletes involved in the cases to prevail.

A ruling for West Virginia and Idaho would effectively apply to the other two dozen Republican-led states with similar laws.

But the justices soon might be asked to decide about the laws in an additional roughly two dozen states, led by Democrats, that allow transgender athletes to compete on the teams that match their gender identity.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts by the Trump administration and others seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

In the Idaho case, Lindsay Hecox, 25, sued over the state's first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women's track and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. She didn’t make either squad because “she was too slow,” her lawyer, Kathleen Hartnett, told the court Tuesday, but she competed in club-level soccer and running.

Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old high school sophomore, was in the courtroom Tuesday. She has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has publicly identified as a girl since age 8 and has been issued a West Virginia birth certificate recognizing her as female. She is the only transgender person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia.

Pepper-Jackson has progressed from a back-of-the-pack cross-country runner in middle school to a statewide third-place finish in the discus in just her first year of high school.

Prominent women in sports have weighed in on both sides. Tennis champion Martina Navratilova, swimmers Summer Sanders and Donna de Varona and beach volleyball player Kerri Walsh-Jennings are supporting the state bans. Soccer stars Megan Rapinoe and Becky Sauerbrunn and basketball players Sue Bird and Breanna Stewart back the transgender athletes.

In 2020, the Supreme Court ruled LGBTQ people are protected by a landmark federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in the workplace, finding that “sex plays an unmistakable role” in employers’ decisions to punish transgender people for traits and behavior they otherwise tolerate.

But last year, the six conservative justices declined to apply the same sort of analysis when they upheld state bans on gender-affirming care for transgender minors.

Chief Justice John Roberts signaled Tuesday he sees differences between the 2020 case, in which he supported the claims of discrimination, and the current dispute.

The states supporting the prohibitions on transgender athletes argue there is no reason to extend the ruling barring workplace discrimination to Title IX.

Idaho's law, state Solicitor General Alan Hurst, said, is “necessary for fair competition because, where sports are concerned, men and women are obviously not the same.”

Lawyers for Pepper-Jackson argue that such distinctions generally make sense, but that their client has none of those advantages because of the unique circumstances of her early transition. In Hecox's case, her lawyers want the court to dismiss the case because she has forsworn trying to play on women's teams.

NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress in 2024 that he was aware of only 10 transgender athletes out of more than a half-million students on college teams. But despite the small numbers, the issue has taken on outsize importance.

Baker's NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women’s sports after Trump, a Republican, signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

A decision is expected by early summer.

Follow the AP's coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court at https://apnews.com/hub/us-supreme-court.

Protesters gather outside the Supreme Court as it hears arguments over state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Protesters gather outside the Supreme Court as it hears arguments over state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

Protesters wave transgender pride flags outside the Supreme Court as it hears arguments over state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams, Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom won final approval from a key agency on Thursday, despite a federal judge recently ordering a halt to construction unless Congress allows what would be the biggest structural change to the American landmark in more than 70 years.

The 12-member National Capital Planning Commission, the agency tasked with approving construction on federal property in the Washington region, took the vote because U.S. District Judge Richard Leon’s ruling — which came two days earlier — affects construction activities but not the planning process, said the commission's Trump-appointed chair, Will Scharf.

A vote of 8-1, with two commissioners voting present and one absent, allowed the plan to move forward.

Despite the agency’s approval, the judge’s ruling and a legal fight over the ballroom could stall progress on a legacy project that Trump is racing to see completed before the end of his term in early 2029. It’s among a series of changes the Republican president is planning for the nation’s capital to leave his lasting imprint while he’s still in office.

Before the vote, Scharf, a top White House aide, noted that Leon's order has been stayed for two weeks as the administration seeks an appeal. He said, as he understood the decision, it “really does not impact our action here today.”

Reading from notes, Scharf also delivered an impassioned defense of the project that reviewed the full history of changes and additions to the White House that were criticized when they were made but have become beloved with the passage of time. He spoke about the addition of the north and south porticos and the balcony added by President Harry Truman.

Scharf suggested that Trump’s proposed ballroom will similarly come to be viewed as a wise addition — despite drawing contemporary opposition from some members of the public and government officials.

“I believe that in time this ballroom will be considered every bit as much of a national treasure as the other key components of the White House,” Scharf said.

Scharf also said the project has been viewed negatively because of opposition to Trump, instead of the merits, saying, “I feel that we’ve been unfairly slighted in the press and otherwise for the way we’ve gone about reviewing this particular project.”

The vote by the commission, which includes three members Trump gets to appoint, had initially been scheduled for March but was postponed to Thursday because so many people signed up to comment at the commission’s meeting last month. The comments were overwhelmingly in opposition to the ballroom.

The lone “no” vote was cast by Phil Mendelson, a Democrat who chairs the Council of the District of Columbia. Linda Argo and Arrington Dixon, the two commissioners appointed by Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, voted present.

Mendelson criticized the design of the ballroom addition and how fast it was approved.

“It’s just too large,” he said.

Criticism also came from Public Citizen, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization. One of its attorneys, Jon Golinger, said the commission had discounted opposition from city officials and thousands of people who commented against the project, and ignored the judge's ruling. Several commissioners, including Scharf, had said they took the public feedback seriously.

“This approval is illegitimate and this vote is a joke," Golinger said.

Trump, in a statement after the vote, thanked the commissioners and said he was honored.

“When completed, it will be the Greatest and Most Beautiful Ballroom of its kind anywhere in the World, and a fabulous complement to our Beautiful and Storied White House!” the president said on social media.

Before voting, the commission considered design changes to the 90,000-square-foot (8,400-square-meter) ballroom addition that the president announced aboard Air Force One on Sunday, as he flew back to Washington from a weekend at his Florida home.

He removed a large staircase on the south side of the building and added an uncovered porch to the southwest side. Architects and other critics of the project had panned the staircase as too large and basically useless since there was no way to enter the ballroom at the top.

A White House official said the president had considered comments from the National Capital Planning Commission and another oversight entity, the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which approved the project earlier this year, as well as members of the public.

The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the ballroom design and spoke on the condition of anonymity, said additional “refinements” had been made to the exterior.

The ballroom, now estimated to cost $400 million, has expanded in scope and price tag since Trump first announced the project last summer, citing a need for space other than a tent on the lawn to host important guests. Trump demolished the East Wing in October with little warning, and site preparation and underground work have been underway since then.

Two other Trump-appointed commissioners, Stuart Levenbach and James Blair, voted for the project.

Levenbach, who serves as vice chairman and is the federal government’s chief statistician, said the White House is currently “not suited” to accommodate large numbers of guests and the addition will improve the “utility” of the compound.

He said tunnels and other structures underground at the White House made it impossible to place many features of the ballroom there, too, as some have suggested might be possible. Levenbach said the addition is a “multipurpose facility,” noting that, in addition to a ballroom, it will also have offices for the first lady, kitchen space and a theater.

“This is not an expansion for its own sake,” Levenbach said.

Blair, a deputy to White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, said visitors and guests of the president deserve a “better experience."

Scharf and Blair also said Trump will get “very limited use” of the ballroom before his term ends.

Trump went ahead with the project before seeking input from the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts, which he reconstituted with allies and supporters.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation, a private nonprofit organization, sued after Trump demolished the East Wing last fall to build the ballroom addition — a space nearly twice as big as the mansion itself.

Trump says it will be paid for with donations from wealthy people and corporations, including him, though public dollars are paying for underground bunkers and security upgrades.

The trust sought a temporary halt to construction until Trump presented the project to both commissions and Congress for approval. Leon agreed but said that his order would take effect in two weeks and that construction related to security would be allowed.

President Donald Trump answers questions from reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House Tuesday, March 31, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Work continues on the construction of the ballroom at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)

President Donald Trump holds a rendering of the proposed new East Wing of the White House as he speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from West Palm Beach, Fla., to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, March 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Work continues on the construction of the ballroom at the White House in Washington, Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)

President Donald Trump holds a rendering of the proposed new East Wing of the White House as he speaks to reporters aboard Air Force One en route from West Palm Beach, Fla., to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, March 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)