The Supreme Court’s ruling on transgender student bathroom access came on September 10, 2025, when the justices voted 6-3 to deny South Carolina’s emergency request to block a transgender ninth-grader from using the boys’ restroom at his public high school. The unsigned order left in place a federal appeals court injunction allowing the student, identified as John Doe, to use facilities matching his gender identity while his underlying lawsuit continues.1SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court Leaves Order in Place Allowing Transgender Student to Use Boys’ Bathroom
What the Court Actually Decided
The order was a single paragraph. Its operative language read: “The denial of the application is not a ruling on the merits of the legal issues presented in the litigation. Rather, it is based on the standards applicable for obtaining emergency relief from this Court.”2Supreme Court of the United States. Order in 25A234
In plain terms, the Court concluded that South Carolina had not met the high bar for emergency intervention. The justices did not decide whether transgender students have a legal right to use bathrooms matching their gender identity. They did not overturn or endorse the appeals court reasoning. They declined, on this posture and on these papers, to disturb what the lower court had done.
To obtain a stay from the Supreme Court, an applicant must generally satisfy a four-factor test drawn from the 2009 decision in Nken v. Holder: a strong showing of likely success on the merits, irreparable harm without a stay, no substantial injury to the opposing party, and a public interest favoring relief. The first two factors carry the most weight.3Florida State University Law Review. Standards for Stays of Injunctive Relief Pending Appeal The order did not spell out which factor South Carolina failed, but the effect was the same: no stay.
The Vote and the Dissenters
Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, and Neil Gorsuch noted they would have granted the state’s application. None of them published a written explanation.4The New York Times. Supreme Court Transgender Bathroom The six justices in the majority went unnamed, as is typical for unsigned emergency orders. The lopsided margin surprised some observers who had expected a closer split given the Court’s conservative composition.5The Washington Post. Supreme Court Transgender Civil Rights Bathroom
The South Carolina Law at Issue
The restriction John Doe challenged was not a standalone statute but a budget proviso, a funding condition attached to South Carolina’s annual appropriations bill. First enacted as Proviso 1.120 in the summer of 2024 and renewed as Proviso 1.114 for the 2025–2026 fiscal year, the provision threatens to withhold 25 percent of state funding from any public K-12 school that lets transgender students use multi-occupancy bathrooms or locker rooms not corresponding to their sex assigned at birth.6SC Daily Gazette. Transgender Student Can Continue Using Boys’ Bathroom, US Supreme Court Says Because the rule sits in the budget rather than in permanent code, the legislature has to renew it each year.7Stateline. More States Pass Laws Restricting Transgender People’s Bathroom Use
John used the boys’ restrooms at Cane Bay Middle School in fall 2024 without complaints from other students. After staff reported his restroom use, the Berkeley County School District suspended him under the proviso. His parents withdrew him from the district that September.8Supreme Court of the United States. Brief in 25A234
How the Case Reached the Supreme Court
In November 2024, John, his family, and the Alliance for Full Acceptance filed a class action in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina, arguing the proviso violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.9Public Justice. Doe v. State of South Carolina
On July 23, 2025, U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel declined to issue a preliminary injunction and stayed the case. He reasoned that the Supreme Court’s July 1 decision to hear West Virginia v. B.P.J., a transgender athletes case, had unsettled the Fourth Circuit’s binding precedent in Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board.10U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Opinion in Doe v. South Carolina
On August 12, 2025, the Fourth Circuit reversed. It held that a grant of certiorari in a different case does not diminish the binding force of existing circuit precedent and issued a narrow preliminary injunction covering only John. The panel relied on Grimm, the 2020 Fourth Circuit decision holding that denying transgender students access to bathrooms matching their gender identity violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.11SCOTUSblog. Transgender Student Bathroom Case Comes to Supreme Court on Emergency Docket
South Carolina then filed an emergency application, docketed as 25A234, on the Supreme Court’s shadow docket. The state characterized Grimm as a “discredited outlier” that “should (and may soon) be overturned,” arguing that the Court’s June 2025 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, which upheld a Tennessee ban on certain gender-affirming medical treatments for minors, had undermined Grimm‘s foundation.1SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court Leaves Order in Place Allowing Transgender Student to Use Boys’ Bathroom
Why a Non-Ruling Still Matters
The Court was careful to say it was not deciding the merits. Even so, the order carries weight for three reasons.
First, it was the Court’s first direct engagement with a transgender bathroom dispute on the emergency docket, and six justices declined to intervene. Second, the order effectively rejected, at least for emergency purposes, South Carolina’s argument that Skrmetti had knocked out Grimm. In Skrmetti, the Court held 6-3 in June 2025 that Tennessee’s medical-treatment law classified based on age and medical use rather than sex, warranting only rational-basis review, and declined to extend Bostock v. Clayton County‘s employment-discrimination reasoning to that context.12Supreme Court of the United States. United States v. Skrmetti Some legal scholars had read the decision as a blueprint for states to sidestep heightened scrutiny by framing transgender restrictions around non-sex categories.13Brookings Institution. What the Skrmetti Decision Means for Transgender Students and the Future of Education Research The September order signaled that a majority of justices were not prepared to import that reasoning into bathroom law without full briefing.
Third, John Doe can keep using the boys’ restroom at his high school while the lawsuit continues. That practical outcome, for him, is the ruling.
The Circuit Split the Court Has Not Resolved
The Fourth Circuit’s Grimm decision drew a $1.3 million settlement from the Gloucester County School Board after the Supreme Court declined to review it in June 2021.14ACLU. Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board The Seventh Circuit reached a similar result in 2023 in A.C. v. Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, and the Supreme Court declined review of that case in January 2024.15ACLU. U.S. Supreme Court Declines to Hear Challenge to Title IX Victory for Transgender Rights
The Eleventh Circuit went the other way. In a 7-4 en banc decision in December 2022, Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida, that court upheld a policy requiring students to use bathrooms matching their biological sex. Applying intermediate scrutiny, the majority found that protecting student privacy in communal restrooms was an important governmental objective substantially served by a sex-based classification, and it held that Title IX explicitly permits separating facilities by biological sex.16U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County
That split is the kind that typically draws Supreme Court review. So far, the Court has declined to take a bathroom case directly on the merits, and the September 2025 order does not change that.
Federal Title IX Guidance Right Now
The federal regulatory picture has whipsawed. The Obama administration’s 2016 guidance allowing transgender students to use facilities matching their gender identity was withdrawn by the first Trump administration in 2017.17PBS NewsHour. Biden Admin Extends Title IX Protections to Transgender Students The Biden administration’s April 2024 Title IX rules explicitly included gender identity, but in January 2025 U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves vacated those rules nationwide, finding the administration had overstepped its authority. The earlier Trump-era regulations, which treat sex as binary and provide no specific federal protections for transgender bathroom access, are again the operative federal framework.18Chalkbeat. Judge Tosses Title IX Rules From Biden in Blow to LGBTQ Students
What Comes Next
The underlying lawsuit remains active before Judge Gergel. John Doe voluntarily dismissed his individual appeal to the Fourth Circuit in the fall of 2025, but the broader class action continues. As of mid-2026, the court has before it the plaintiffs’ motions for class certification and a preliminary injunction, alongside the state’s motions to dismiss and to stay proceedings.9Public Justice. Doe v. State of South Carolina19CourtListener. Doe v. South Carolina, State of – Docket
Two pending Supreme Court cases could reshape the analysis. West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, both argued on January 13, 2026, challenge state laws barring transgender girls from girls’ sports teams. Reporting after argument suggested the Court appeared likely to uphold the bans.20SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court Appears Likely to Uphold Transgender Athlete Bans Rulings are expected by late June or early July 2026.21Oyez. Little v. Hecox Those cases involve sports, not bathrooms, but whatever framework the Court adopts for sex-based classifications involving transgender students will carry directly into bathroom litigation, including John Doe’s.
For now, the September 2025 order stands as the Supreme Court’s clearest signal on transgender bathroom access: six justices declined to let a state enforce its restriction against a transgender student on an emergency basis, and the merits question remains open.