Trans students can be kept out of sports, court says. What it means for SC bans
South Carolina can restrict transgender students from participating in school sports after the U.S. Supreme Court determined similar laws in two other states were constitutional.
South Carolina passed a law in 2022 to keep transgender students out of sports that align with their gender identity. The ban prohibits transgender girls from playing on girls’ sports teams in public school and vice versa.
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that similar challenged laws in other states could stand, affirming South Carolina’s ban on students participating in sports that don’t align with their gender assigned at birth.
Transgender athletes in West Virginia and Idaho challenged their states’ laws that prohibited them from participating on girls’ sports teams, arguing the bans allegedly violated the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. B.P.J., a transgender girl who wanted to run on her school’s cross country team, also argued the West Virginia law violated Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in sports.
The court determined the state laws violated neither the equal protection clause nor Title IX. The decision could also provide sweeping reassurances for more than two dozen states with similar bans, including South Carolina.
“In other words, may schools determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex? The answer is yes,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in his opinion.
Senate Majority Leader Shane Massey, R-Edgefield, described the high court’s decision as a “stamp of approval” for South Carolina’s ban on transgender athletes in a statement.
Where does bathroom ban lawsuit stand?
A South Carolina transgender teenager challenged a state policy banning students from using a school bathroom that doesn’t align with his gender assigned at birth in 2024, when a one year budget item first passed.
U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel wrote in a July 2025 order how the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the transgender athlete case has “the potential of bringing clarity and providing guidance to this Court” on the bathroom ban policy. Gergel put the South Carolina teenager’s case on hold last summer until the U.S. Supreme Court determined West Virginia v. B.P.J., according to court filings.
At issue was a one-year budget item prohibiting K-12 transgender students from using their preferred bathrooms in public schools. The policy was made permanent and expanded to colleges and universities this year by the General Assembly.
The anonymous Berkeley County teenager left public high school due to harassment in October, according to his attorney. Still, his case in district court is active.
Gergel directed lawyers for South Carolina and the transgender teenager to file their opinions on how the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision impacts the bathroom ban case in the July 2025 order.
This story was originally published June 30, 2026 at 1:23 PM with the headline "Trans students can be kept out of sports, court says. What it means for SC bans."