On September 16, 2025, the Supreme Court opened a new term that’s already being called one of the most consequential in recent memory for transgender rights in the United States. From the fate of trans athletes on school sports teams to the future of transgender service members in the military, the nation’s highest court is poised to decide a series of cases that could reshape the legal landscape for more than a million Americans.
At the heart of this term’s docket are several cases that, taken together, reflect a growing divide in the country over how transgender people are treated under the law. According to SCENE Magazine and Talking Points Memo, the Court’s conservative majority has signaled a willingness to allow states to enact sweeping restrictions on trans rights, particularly in areas where public opinion has shifted in favor of increased regulation since 2022.
One of the most high-profile cases comes from the world of sports. The Court is considering two separate challenges to state laws that ban transgender girls and women from participating on girls’ sports teams—one involving a middle school student in West Virginia, and another brought by Lindsay Hecox, a college student at Boise State University in Idaho. While Hecox recently dropped her suit, citing the "negative public scrutiny" her case had generated, the West Virginia case remains live and carries significant implications.
The West Virginia case centers on B.P.J., a transgender middle school girl who, as her lawyers point out, never went through male puberty. This fact, they argue, undercuts the supposed physical advantages that are often cited as justification for excluding trans girls from girls’ sports. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court has chosen to take up the case, even as B.P.J.'s attorneys urged the justices to wait for lower courts to develop a more robust record of expert testimony and scientific evidence. The state of West Virginia, for its part, is asking the Court to decide whether its law—requiring sports teams to be segregated by biological sex at birth—violates either the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX, the federal law barring sex discrimination in education.
These legal battles come on the heels of a major Supreme Court decision last term in U.S. v. Skrmetti, where the justices upheld a Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for minors. In that case, the Court’s conservative majority—led by Chief Justice John Roberts—ruled that the law was not subject to heightened constitutional scrutiny, despite the fact that it applied only to transgender minors. Justices Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, and Samuel Alito went even further, stating explicitly that transgender people do not constitute a "suspect class" deserving of greater legal protection under the Equal Protection Clause. As Barrett wrote, "The Sixth Circuit held that transgender individuals do not constitute a suspect class, and it was right to do so."
For advocates of transgender rights, these rulings have been deeply troubling. They point to a broader trend: red states, sensing an opportunity, have passed a wave of anti-trans laws in hopes of securing a Supreme Court decision that would grant them even more leeway to restrict trans rights. Public opinion has shifted as well, with a Pew survey showing that since 2022, fewer Americans now support trans girls playing on girls’ teams, trans minors accessing gender-affirming care, or trans people using bathrooms that match their gender identity. These are all issues that have been amplified in right-wing media and by Republican leaders, according to Talking Points Memo.
But the Supreme Court’s focus on transgender rights this term goes well beyond sports and healthcare. Another major case on the docket challenges Colorado’s ban on conversion therapy for minors—a practice widely discredited by medical experts but still defended by some conservative activists. The plaintiff, Kaley Chiles, a licensed professional counselor, is backed by the Alliance Defending Freedom and argues that the ban violates her free speech rights. Colorado counters that the law regulates professional, not pure, speech and that its interest in protecting minors from harmful healthcare practices is "of the highest possible order." As the state’s brief puts it, "The Court should review Colorado’s law under a rational-basis standard, but it satisfies any level of scrutiny."
Perhaps nowhere is the Supreme Court’s impact on transgender Americans more personal than in the case of Second Lieutenant Nicolas Talbott, a 31-year-old Army Reservist from Lisbon, Ohio. As reported by SCENE Magazine, Talbott is the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging former President Donald Trump’s executive order banning transgender individuals from serving in the U.S. military. Talbott’s journey has not been easy: raised in a conservative, pro-Trump town, he knew from a young age that he was transgender and dreamed of military service. He first tried to enlist in 2012 but was blocked by the longstanding ban. When the ban was lifted in 2016, he began the process again—only to have his hopes dashed when Trump reinstated the ban in 2017.
Despite these setbacks, Talbott persevered. He joined Kent State University’s ROTC program, re-enlisted after the ban was lifted again in 2021, and went on to become Honor Graduate at basic combat training. Now a Platoon Leader in a Military Policing Unit, Talbott has earned the respect of his peers and superiors alike. "Nobody I've served with has had any issue with my being transgender in any way, shape or form," he said, emphasizing that his gender identity has never affected unit cohesion or his ability to serve.
In March 2025, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction against Trump’s ban, a decision Talbott described as "a breath of fresh air" for trans service members facing involuntary separation. The lawsuit, originally Talbott v. Trump and now Talbott v. USA, argues that the ban violates the Equal Protection component of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Legal experts say the case is strengthened by the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that discrimination based on transgender status is a form of sex discrimination.
The stakes could hardly be higher: the Supreme Court’s decision in Talbott’s case will determine the future of more than 4,000 transgender service members, as well as the broader question of whether trans Americans are entitled to heightened legal protection under the Constitution.
As this Supreme Court term unfolds, the nation finds itself at a crossroads. The outcomes of these cases will not only shape the lives of thousands of transgender Americans but also set the tone for how the country navigates questions of identity, equality, and civil rights for years to come.