Garden State Equality is deeply disheartened by the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold state bans on transgender women and girls from playing school sports in line with their gender in the consolidated case of West Virginia v. BPJ. By upholding these state bans, the court has decided that these bans don’t amount to a constitutional violation of the rights of trans youth. We disagree. We are also concerned about the message this decision sends at a time when transgender Americans have been vilified by politicians seeking cheap political points.
Although this decision has no effect on New Jersey’s current laws and policies, as the Court only responded to the state-level bans in effect in other states, it will have an effect on the wellbeing of the trans and gender diverse youth who call our state home.
Garden State Equality encourages every coach, every school, and every caregiver to honor the inherent dignity of all our student athletes — including trans student athletes. We are here to say that we are on your team, in your schools, and in your communities.
Brielle Winslow-Majette, acting Executive Director, said:
“As an athlete, I learned some of life’s most important lessons on a field, a court, and a track long before I ever learned them in a boardroom. Sports taught me discipline, grit, accountability, leadership, and how to lose with grace and win with humility. I found not only teammates but life mates, and every child deserves that opportunity. That’s one of the reasons Title IX is so important; it’s also the reason protecting trans youth’s access to sports is so important. Both are true, and they are not mutually exclusive.
I have played with and against trans women throughout my athletic career without issue, which is why I further disagree with the court’s opinion. Garden State Equality will continue to fight every day to protect the rights of trans youth in New Jersey schools to live out their dreams and access the same refuge I found in sports.
As someone who has competed my entire life, I know that sports are about far more than trophies and championships. They are about belonging. They are about learning to trust your teammates, finding mentors who believe in you, and discovering strengths you never knew you had. We should be fighting to make those experiences available to more young people, not fewer.”
Lauren Albrecht, Senior Director of Advocacy & Organizing, said:
“Politicians should not score points at the expense of children. Today’s decision harms trans youth by allowing bans in some states to continue, but even Justice Kavanaugh in his opinion said that ‘[n]o student-athlete on either side of the issue … deserves to be ostracized or vilified.’
For more than fifty years, Title IX has stood as one of the greatest legislative victories in education, as it expanded opportunity, removed barriers, and ensured that people who had historically been pushed to the sidelines could finally step onto the field. Its legacy is one of opening doors, and today one of those doors was slammed shut.”
Bans on transgender athletes have led to witch hunts targeting children of all genders, and they have subjected women and girls — especially those of color and those who do not conform to traditional gender roles — to harassment, invasions of privacy, and dubious sex testing. These efforts to police our children and female athletes make our schools and communities less safe for everyone.
“As a Black woman, I have seen and experienced the ways Black women and girls have been questioned, scrutinized, and treated as though we must prove our womanhood to deserve a place in sports,” added Winslow-Majette. “When we create systems that require women to prove who they are before they are allowed to participate, we repeat a history rooted in racism, sexism, and transphobia. That is why I am outraged by the continued efforts to ban transgender girls and women from participating in sports.”
While the issues in these cases were focused on the rights of trans women and girls to play sports with their friends, the Supreme Court’s decision has further empowered a nationally coordinated effort to push trans and gender diverse people out of public life while undermining civil rights protections for everyone.
For decades, trans women and girls have participated in scholastic sports. In New Jersey, the New Jersey Interscholastic Athletic Association has had a policy allowing transgender students to play on teams consistent with their gender identity since 2009. Even in the wake of President Trump’s February 2025 executive order threatening to pull funds from schools that allow trans girls to play girls’ sports, the NJSIAA reaffirmed its transgender inclusion policy. At the time, a representative for the NJSIAA said there has never been a controversy regarding a trans student-athlete in New Jersey.
There are two laws in New Jersey protecting trans student-athletes’ right to play sports consistent with their gender identity: the NJ Law Against Discrimination, which makes discrimination on the basis of gender identity or expression illegal, and a 2017 law requiring the state Department of Education to develop and distribute directions for supporting trans and gender diverse students.