Every year, the U.S. Supreme Court receives an estimated 8,000 requests — petitions, or “writs of certiorari” — to take up cases related to a number of constitutional questions affecting Americans and our lives. It only grants a small percentage of those and denies review to the overwhelming majority of cases, allowing lower court decisions to remain in place. (For example, in the 2024-2025 term, the Supreme Court agreed to hear just 65 cases — approximately 0.8% of all the requests it received.)

In fall 2025, the Supreme Court has agreed to hear three cases affecting LGBTQ rights, regarding the constitutionality of allowing states to ban transgender women and girls from participating in sports and the constitutionality of so-called “conversion therapy.” Oral arguments will likely be heard in the fall and winter, and opinions are expected by summer 2026.

Hecox v. Little challenges Idaho’s HB 500, the first state law in the country to outrightly ban transgender girls and women from participating in school sports. The Idaho law passed in 2020 and categorically bans girls and women who are transgender from participating in sports under any circumstances, and at all levels of competition. In August 2023, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted an injunction blocking the law, finding that it likely violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. A federal district court had previously also struck down the law.

At the center of the case is Lindsay Hecox, a college student who wanted to run track at Boise State University. As a result of the injunction, Lindsay has been able to participate in other sports including tryouts for club sports at her college and playing on the club soccer team. The lawsuit is also brought on behalf of Jane Doe, a senior at Boise High School who is cisgender and concerned about being subjected to the law’s invasive “sex verification” testing.

Hundreds of athletes, coaches, and businesses, as well as civil rights, legal, and medical experts all supported Lindsay by submitting friend-of-the-court briefs at the appellate court level. Lindsay is represented by the ACLU and the ACLU of Idaho, Legal Voice, and Cooley LLP.

West Virginia v. B.P.J. challenges West Virginia’s categorical ban on allowing transgender girls to participate in school sports. West Virginia’s ban, HB 3293, passed in 2021 and was signed by the governor despite his inability to name a single example of a transgender student participating in school sports in the state. The law was struck down in 2024 by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, which held that banning girls like the plaintiff, Becky, from playing sports violated Title IX; and that the district court should not have dismissed her equal protection claim.

Becky is starting high school and wanted to be able to participate in cross-country and track and field with her friends. As a result of a lower court injunction in the case, Becky was able to participate in middle school cross-country and track and field for the past three years. Becky and her mother are represented by the ACLU, the ACLU of West Virginia, Lambda Legal and Cooley LLP.

Reporters can find facts and data related to transgender youth and sports at GLAAD’s fact sheet here.

Chiles v. Salazar concerns a Colorado ban on so-called “conversion therapy,”which refers to the harmful and discredited practice of attempting to change an LGBTQ person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. Colorado enacted the ban based on “overwhelming evidence that efforts to change a child’s sexual orientation or gender identity are unsafe and ineffective.”

Anti-LGBTQ activists have falsely claimed for years that a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity is a choice and changeable — but only for LGBTQ people. They often falsely claim that LGBTQ identities are not real, but rather an expression of mental illness or an emotional disorder that can be “cured” through psychological or religious intervention.  

Conversion therapy practices are banned in 22 states and in dozens of municipalities for being discredited and harmful, causing negative impacts on youth including depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and suicide. Such practices have been rejected by every mainstream medical and mental health organization for decades, and the United Nations has compared it to “torture.”

Additional Background – Status of Marriage at the Supreme Court

• In late July, Kim Davis —  a county clerk who made headlines decades ago for refusing to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple — filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to review a lawsuit in which a same-sex couple was awarded emotional damages as a result of Davis’ refusal to follow the law and issue them a same-sex marriage license. As part of the petition, her attorneys included a request to overturn Obergefell v. Hodges,the 2015 Supreme Court decision that affirmed the freedom to marry for same-sex couples nationwide.
• Kim Davis was an elected official who refused to follow the law and instructed her whole office not to follow the law. She has been married four times, divorced three times.
• Most recently, Davis’s arguments were rejected for a third time by the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals. There is no reason to assume her petition has any significance compared to the thousands of other petitions filed. It is unlikely the Supreme Court would consider this case.
• A majority of Americans from all walks of life, in every state, and across political backgrounds support or are neutral on the question of marriage.
• More than 1.6 million Americans are married right now to a person of the same sex and almost 300,000 couples under 18 are raising children.
• Marriage equality strengthens families, communities, and the economy and harms no one. There’s no reason to revisit Obergefell or marriage equality.