President Donald Trump criticized several U.S. Supreme Court justices after arguments in two cases involving transgender athletes and women’s sports, saying any justice who rules to allow “men playing in women’s sports” should “lose a lot of credibility.”
Speaking to reporters during a White House press conference Tuesday, Trump said he was stunned by what he viewed as support for the transgender athlete plaintiffs from some members of the court.
“Big Supreme Court case. I mean, I can’t believe it. Some of the justices were fighting hard for men to be able to play in women’s sports. A couple of them, I can’t imagine it,” Trump said. “But I think anybody that rules that way should lose a lot of credibility. But we banned men from playing in women’s sports.”
He argued the issue is best understood by looking at performance differences across sports.
“All you have to do is look at the records, look at weightlifting records, look at swimming records, look at track and field. This is not fair. It’s very demeaning to women.”
Trump also took aim at the previous administration’s position, saying it continued to push the idea of transgender participation in women’s sports — including during Supreme Court arguments.
“The past administration, they had no clue or they were really bad, but they basically had no clue,” Trump said. “But they did have, a concept. I mean, they’re still trying to sell the idea of men playing in women’s sports. You saw that in the Supreme Court. I mean, some of those justices were fighting for them, too. … But you saw that just the other day in the Supreme Court, men playing in women’s sport doesn’t work.”
The cases before the court
The Supreme Court heard two cases last week centered on whether states can enforce laws that bar biological males from participating in girls’ and women’s sports. Idaho and West Virginia each passed measures intended to protect women’s sports, but both states were sued by transgender athletes who challenged the laws and won orders blocking enforcement.
Now, the high court will review the disputes, setting the stage for a ruling that could define how far states can go in regulating eligibility for sex-separated sports teams.
During the hearing, questions from Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor suggested they may be open to the plaintiffs’ arguments.
Jackson pressed Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst on whether Idaho’s law was effectively classifying athletes based on transgender status.
“I guess I’m struggling to understand how you can say that this law doesn’t classify on the basis of transgender status,” Jackson told Hurst. “The law expressly aims to ensure that transgender women can’t play on women’s sports teams. So why is that not a classification on the basis of transgender status?”
Hurst responded that Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act is based on sex, not transgender status. Jackson followed up by asking: “But it treats transgender women different than ciswomen, doesn’t it?”
Jackson raised similar points in the West Virginia case, questioning how the state’s approach interacts with gender identity.
“You have the overarching classification — everybody has to play on the team that is the same as their sex at birth — but then you have a gender-identity definition that is operating within that,” she said. “For cisgender girls, they can play consistent with their gender identity. For transgender girls, they can’t.”
Sotomayor, meanwhile, argued that transgender rights should not be minimized simply because transgender people represent a relatively small share of the population. She cited an estimated 2.8 million transgender people in the U.S.
“What’s percentage enough?” Sotomayor asked. “There are 2.8 million transgender people in the United States. That’s an awfully big figure. … What makes a subclass meaningful to you? Is it one percent? Five percent? Thirty percent? Fifteen percent?
“The numbers don’t talk about the human beings.”
How recent rulings could shape the outcome
Even with sharp questioning from the court’s liberal justices, recent decisions suggest the states could still have the advantage.
In United States v Skrmetti, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling on June 18, 2025, upholding Tennessee’s ban on certain gender-affirming medical care for minors, with the justices dividing along ideological lines.
In a separate August 2024 decision, the court rejected an emergency request tied to a new rule that included anti-discrimination protections for transgender students under Title IX. That vote was 5-4, with Justice Neil Gorsuch dissenting alongside the three liberal justices, arguing the lower-court rulings were “overbroad.”
The emergency request, if granted, would have allowed biological males access to women’s bathrooms, locker rooms, and dorms in 10 states where state and local rules were in place to prevent it.
A decision in the trans-athlete cases is expected by June at the latest.
