LGBTQ+ organizations and advocates responded to Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding Idaho and West Virginia’s laws that bar transgender students from competing on school sports teams that align with their gender identity, warning the decision will deepen discrimination and harm transgender youth. Across the country, advocacy groups called for continued legal challenges, policy action and community support in response to the 6-3 ruling.
Senior Counsel for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project, Joshua Block: “This is a heartbreaking ruling for our clients and transgender girls like them who’ve asked for nothing more than the same opportunities afforded to their peers. The reality is that the equality of transgender women and girls takes nothing away from, and in fact promotes, the equality of all women and girls. We will continue to advance the fundamental principle that all young people deserve equal opportunity to thrive and succeed.”
CEO of PFLAG National, Brian K. Bond: “The Court rules best when it listens to the needs of marginalized people: trans people belong, on and off the field. While we celebrate the Court’s decision to uphold the Fourteenth Amendment and affirm that every person born in the United States is a citizen, the Court today added an asterisk to allow discrimination against transgender student athletes. Our country has been here before, and frankly, you would think this Court would have learned.
For PFLAG families, today’s decision in BPJ means that transgender athletes can continue to be affirmed for who they are in places where the law allows – and invigorates our LGBTQ+ and allied community to expand those protections. The parents, families, allies and LGBTQ+ people of PFLAG will continue to advocate for our trans loved ones to have the freedom to be themselves, everywhere. Trans people belong, and deserve to have access to the benefits of sport like everyone else.”
Policy Director of the National LGBTQ Task Force, Allen Morris: “Today’s decision is devastating and the impact clear. While this is not a nationwide ban on transgender participation in sports, the Court has given states a legal pathway to attempt to discriminate against trans individuals from full participation in school sports and all aspects of life.
Behind every legal argument of these cases is a young athlete who simply wanted their humanity to be valued, to belong, be seen, and participate with their peers.
This decision sets a terrible precedent and opens the door to a larger scope of discrimination against transgender people, and we know is part of a much more organized campaign that goes back to Project 2025 and the exclusion and erasure of transgender people from public life.
This ruling is not just about sports: it’s about valuing and protecting the safety, security and constitutional rights of transgender people. By allowing states to draw a categorical line based on “biological sex,” the majority has chosen deference to exclusion and political beliefs over transgender students’ lived realities. There is already a dangerous rise in state-based violence growing across the country, and we’re overcoming this issue at each turn.”
NCLR legal director, Shannon Minter: “To the transgender kids watching today: please don’t lose heart. This is a setback, not the final word. You deserve to play, to belong, and to dream as big as any other child—and we will keep working until the law fully recognizes that.”
Transgender athlete and board member of Point of Pride, Chris Mosier: “The Supreme Court’s decision today isn’t driven by fairness or dignity in sports. It’s an attack on our community’s right to live freely and authentically in every part of our lives.
Young people, regardless of whether they’re cis or trans, deserve the joy of sports: to build friendships, to move their bodies and have fun on the field.
To every trans athlete out there: you have a community standing behind you. No politician or law can take away your joy or power. We will get through this as our community has always done: together.”
GLAAD CEO and president, Sarah Kate Ellis: “The Supreme Court’s ruling on transgender youth participating in school sports is at odds with the fundamental principles of fairness, freedom, and family that define our country and our communities.
By allowing sweeping restrictions on a very small number of transgender students who simply wanted to participate in sports alongside their peers, the ruling creates an unnecessarily unfair playing field.
Personal freedom and opportunity are best served when our legal protections expand access and guarantee safety for everyone. Today’s decision unfairly strips the rights of a few and threatens the ability of every girl and woman to play the sports they love.”
