By Joan Biskupic, CNN Chief Supreme Court Analyst
(CNN) — During a marathon Supreme Court session Tuesday over whether states may ban transgender women from participating in women and girls’ sports, some justices were already focused on what may lie around the corner in the controversial area of trans rights.
The majority appeared poised to uphold bans in Idaho, West Virginia and about 25 other mostly Republican-controlled states. One next question, not far from their minds, was whether California and about 20 other mainly Democratic states may move in the opposite direction and specifically permit trans women to compete on female school sports teams.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh raised concerns about trans women putting girls and women at a disadvantage.
“It’s kind of a zero-sum game for a lot of teams,” Kavanaugh said. “And someone who tries out and makes it, who is a transgender girl, will bump from the starting lineup, from playing time, from the team, from the all-league – and those things matter to people big time – will bump someone else.”
Kavanaugh, who has coached girls’ sports on the side, had pressed the issue of safety and competitive fairness in an unrelated trans case last year.
Other conservative justices seemed to be anticipating how their interpretation of Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in school programs that receive federal funds, could affect programs beyond the pending sports case in a broader educational context.
Liberal justices separately pressed for some avenue that would allow transgender women to persist in lawsuits based on their specific circumstances, for example, because their suppressed testosterone levels may ensure no competitive advantage.
Overall, the three-and-a-half hours of arguments in the packed courtroom showed the justices grappling with an array of possibilities on a societal dilemma that personally affects only about 1% of the United States population but has become a flashpoint in politics and American culture wars.
President Donald Trump ran against trans rights in the 2024 election campaign that returned him to the White House, and one of his immediate executive orders said: “It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable … .”
Trump’s administration has since banned trans troops in the military, required US passport holders to use their sex at birth rather than gender identity and ordered an end to federal funding for certain medical care for trans youths. It has also tried to keep trans women from competing in women’s school sports – a point of contention that repeatedly surfaced in Tuesday’s argument.
But while deputy US Solicitor General Hashim Mooppan acknowledged the administration’s efforts to stop states from letting trans women and girls compete, he urged the justices to rule narrowly on the disputed Idaho and West Virginia state bans and leave that litigation for another day.
“As we said in our brief, we would urge the court to just reserve judgment,” on whether such blue state measures are lawful, he said.
Chief Justice John Roberts, who has played a key role in p