Supreme Court rulings reshape transgender policies in public schools

In early March, in Mirabelli v. Bonta, the U.S. Supreme Court dramatically shifted the balance of power between the ideological bureaucrats who run America’s public schools and the parents and students they must serve. The court was unequivocal – as was the case last year in Mahmoud v. Taylor – parents have the fundamental right to raise and educate their children. Period. Schools should not facilitate a student’s “gender transition” without parental notification and consent.

Just days after Mirabelli, the left-leaning Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously in Anderson v. Crouch that West Virginia’s decision to exclude sex reassignment surgeries from Medicaid coverage did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Relying on the Supreme Court’s landmark 2025 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, the Fourth Circuit concluded that West Virginia’s Medicaid program did not discriminate on the basis of sex, but was a medical policy applied equally to both sexes seeking certain treatments for gender dysphoria.

The court further ruled that Medicaid did not discriminate on the basis of a person’s claimed transgender status: a person — even if they claimed to be transgender — could still receive coverage for a hysterectomy to treat uterine cancer, but not for the same procedure to treat gender dysphoria.

The decision in the Anderson case is monumental. Unlike Skrmetti, who only addressed the banning of medical treatments for gender dysphoria in children, Anderson also applies to adults. This decision is also a harbinger of the inevitable collapse of the destructive ideological regime of public education that forces women to share toilets, locker rooms and sports competitions with men.

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

After all, policies requiring intimate spaces and sports to be segregated on the basis of biological sex apply equally to both sexes — precisely the logic approved by the Fourth Circuit in upholding West Virginia’s Medicaid exclusion.

These policies do not target people who claim to be transgender. No student, regardless of motivation, should use a locker room, bathroom, or play on a sports team designated for the opposite sex. A boy who seeks access to the girls’ bathroom because he fears being bullied is subject to the same rule as a boy who wants to use the girls’ bathroom because he thinks he is a girl.

Certainly, common sense policies dictate separate bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams for men and women, just as West Virginia’s Medicaid restriction in Anderson is based on sound medical policy that states have a legitimate, evidence-based interest in controlling Medicaid costs and ensuring medical necessity that is not driven by sex discrimination.

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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals’ decision less than a year ago in Roe v. Critchfield is also revealing. That appeals court, far from being a bastion of judicial conservatism, held that Idaho’s law requiring students to use restrooms and locker rooms based on their biological sex violated neither the Equal Protection Clause nor Title IX of the Civil Rights Act.

These important decisions were not made in isolation. Before the end of June, the Supreme Court will issue its decision in West Virginia v. BPJ, which clearly poses the question of whether a state violates the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX by segregating sports teams on the basis of sex.

The smart money says the court will answer in the negative and may well signal, directly or indirectly, that toilets and changing rooms can also be separated on this basis. Such a move would be more than welcome, as it would allow states to pass laws protecting women’s sports and private spaces without the perpetual threat of litigation from the ACLU and allied advocacy organizations.

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Still, a favorable ruling from the Supreme Court, while a major blow to the transgender curriculum in public schools, may not end the war for common sense. Instead, staunchly blue states will likely continue to impose policies that eviscerate student privacy and safety, even though they can no longer credibly claim that federal law requires them to do so.

Indeed, parents and students will continue to see situations like that in New Richmond, Wisconsin, where school administrators told girls that if they were uncomfortable sharing a bathroom or locker room with a member of the opposite sex, it would be up to the girls to find a private alternative.

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These policies do not target people who claim to be transgender. No student, regardless of motivation, should use a locker room, bathroom, or play on a sports team designated for the opposite sex.

Fortunately, the Trump administration has taken enforcement action against school districts across the country – including in New Richmond and several districts in Northern Virginia – on the grounds that their policies constitute sex discrimination under Title IX.

But the application of federal measures alone will not be enough to put an end to this state of affairs once and for all. Students and their families need to grasp the changing legal landscape and apply maximum pressure. Students and parents must be ever vigilant, challenge school policies, and be prepared to sue school districts for violating the sex-based rights guaranteed to students by the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX.

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Parents hold the valuable right to raise their children, and children do not give up their rights when they walk through the school doors. The time to win this fight is now, and the opportunity has never been greater.

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