Transgender bathroom laws in schools now vary sharply by state: 21 states and one territory require students in public K-12 schools (and often other government buildings) to use bathrooms matching the sex they were assigned at birth, while 29 states, four territories, and the District of Columbia have no such restriction.1Movement Advancement Project. Bans on Transgender People Using Public Bathrooms and Facilities According to Their Gender Identity The federal government, after reversing course in early 2025, now reads Title IX the same way the restrictive states do. Courts are divided, several state laws are partly or fully blocked by injunctions, and the Supreme Court has so far declined to settle the central question.
Which States Restrict Bathroom Access in Schools
Twenty-one states have enacted bathroom restrictions, with the earliest in Tennessee in 2021 and the largest wave arriving in 2023, 2024, and 2025. The current list includes Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, and others added in the 2025 session.2Stateline. More States Pass Laws Restricting Transgender People’s Bathroom Use1Movement Advancement Project. Bans on Transgender People Using Public Bathrooms and Facilities According to Their Gender Identity
The scope of these laws is not uniform. Five states limit the restriction to K-12 schools. Seven apply it to K-12 schools and at least some government-owned buildings. Nine states and one territory extend it across all government-owned buildings, including public colleges. Six states — Florida, Idaho, Kansas, Montana, Ohio, and Wyoming — reach into at least some private settings as well. Virginia is a procedural outlier: it enforces its policy through agency directives that school districts are required to adopt rather than through a statute, and some districts have resisted.1Movement Advancement Project. Bans on Transgender People Using Public Bathrooms and Facilities According to Their Gender Identity
Ohio’s law shows what a typical school-focused ban looks like. Signed by Governor Mike DeWine on November 27, 2024, and effective February 25, 2025, the “Protect All Students Act” requires bathrooms, locker rooms, and overnight accommodations in K-12 public and private schools, colleges, and universities to be designated by sex assigned at or near birth. Single-occupancy facilities are exempt, as are emergencies and situations involving assistance to young children or people with disabilities. The statute includes no formal enforcement mechanism.3PBS NewsHour. Ohio Gov. DeWine Signs Bill Restricting Transgender Students’ Use of Bathrooms
Other states have built in penalties. South Carolina’s budget proviso threatens noncompliant school districts with the loss of 25% of their state funding.4SCOTUSblog. Lawyers Urge Supreme Court to Allow Transgender Boy to Use Boys’ Bathroom Oklahoma’s Senate Bill 615 cuts up to 5% of a district’s annual state aid for allowing transgender students to use bathrooms matching their gender identity.5Lambda Legal. Bridge v. Oklahoma State Department of Education Four states attach criminal penalties in some circumstances.1Movement Advancement Project. Bans on Transgender People Using Public Bathrooms and Facilities According to Their Gender Identity
Idaho’s Criminal Penalties
Idaho’s House Bill 752, signed by Governor Brad Little on March 31, 2026, is the most severe law of this kind. Using a bathroom inconsistent with one’s birth sex in a government building or a business open to the public is a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison; a second offense within five years is a felony carrying up to five years.6Idaho Capital Sun. Idaho Governor Signs Bill to Criminalize Trans People Using Bathrooms That Align With Their Identity Both the Idaho Fraternal Order of Police and the Idaho Chiefs of Police Association opposed the bill, saying it would force officers to make “invasive and inappropriate” determinations about biological sex during routine encounters.7Lambda Legal. Trans Idahoans Challenge Criminal Restroom Ban in Federal Lawsuit Enforcement is now partly blocked by a federal injunction (see below).
What the Federal Government Is Doing
Federal policy on whether Title IX protects transgender students’ access to bathrooms matching their gender identity has flipped twice in two years. The Biden administration’s April 2024 Title IX regulations would have brought gender identity within the statute’s prohibition on sex discrimination, but a federal court in the Eastern District of Kentucky vacated those rules nationwide in January 2025. The court held that the Department of Education lacked authority to extend Title IX to gender identity and that the Supreme Court’s 2020 employment ruling in Bostock v. Clayton County does not apply to Title IX.8Bowditch & Dewey. What Schools Need to Know After Court Vacates Title IX Regulations Nationally
On January 31, 2025, the Department of Education announced it would enforce the 2020 Title IX regulations, which require facility use based on biological sex.9U.S. Department of Education. US Department of Education to Enforce 2020 Title IX Rule Protecting Women Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said that “the practice of allowing students to access sex-separated programs and facilities based solely on self-asserted ‘gender identity’ is deeply troubling and raises significant legal concerns.”10The News & Observer. Federal Title IX Investigations and Transgender Student Bathroom Access
Two days earlier, on January 29, 2025, President Trump signed the executive order “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schools,” directing federal agencies to pull funding from schools that let students use facilities aligned with their gender identity. The order also bars schools from recognizing a student’s gender identity, using preferred pronouns, or supporting “social transition,” and requires staff to notify parents when a student asks to use a different name or pronouns.11Williams Institute. Executive Order Impact on K-12 Schools
The Department’s Office for Civil Rights has moved from guidance to enforcement. It opened a directed investigation into Denver Public Schools on January 28, 2025, over the conversion of a female restroom at Denver East High School into an all-gender facility, and later found the district in violation of Title IX, giving it 10 days to resolve the issue or risk losing federal funding. By June 2026, OCR had issued warning letters to at least 13 school districts in states including North Carolina, Maryland, Michigan, Kansas, and Colorado.12U.S. Department of Education. US Department of Education Opens Investigations Into Maryland School Districts
What the Courts Have Said
Two federal appeals courts have reached opposite conclusions on the same question, and the Supreme Court has not resolved the split.
Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board
In August 2020, the Fourth Circuit ruled that a Virginia school board’s policy requiring Gavin Grimm, a transgender boy, to use either the girls’ bathroom or a separate single-stall facility violated both the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX. The court treated transgender individuals as a “quasi-suspect class” entitled to heightened scrutiny and called the single-stall alternative “stigmatizing and discriminatory.”13Justia. Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board The Supreme Court declined to take the case in June 2021, leaving the decision binding on public schools in Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia.14ACLU. Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board
Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County
On December 30, 2022, the full Eleventh Circuit ruled 7-4 the other way. The court held that a Florida district’s policy separating school bathrooms by biological sex violated neither the Equal Protection Clause nor Title IX, finding that it served the important governmental objective of protecting student privacy and that “sex” in Title IX refers to biology and reproductive function rather than gender identity.15U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit. Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County The ruling is binding on public schools in Alabama, Florida, and Georgia and directly conflicts with Grimm.16League of Women Voters. Adams v. School Board of St. Johns County, Florida
How Skrmetti Changes the Picture
United States v. Skrmetti, decided June 18, 2025, concerned Tennessee’s ban on puberty blockers and hormones for transgender minors rather than bathrooms. The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that the law did not classify on the basis of sex or transgender status and applied rational basis review, upholding it as rationally related to protecting minors’ health.17Brookings Institution. What the Skrmetti Decision Means for Transgender Students and the Future of Education Research States defending bathroom laws now rely heavily on it. South Carolina has argued in Supreme Court filings that Skrmetti is “irreconcilable” with Grimm, which applied heightened scrutiny to bathroom policies.18SCOTUSblog. Transgender Student Bathroom Case Comes to Supreme Court on Emergency Docket OCR has already cited Skrmetti in enforcement actions against districts with gender-inclusive policies. The Court has agreed to hear two cases on transgender athletes, West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Hecox v. Little; oral arguments in B.P.J. were held in January 2026, and the rulings may shape the standard courts apply to bathroom cases next.19SCOTUSblog. West Virginia v. B.P.J.
State Laws Now Blocked or Being Challenged
Several of the newer state laws are not fully in force because courts have paused them.
South Carolina. A 14-year-old transgender boy identified as John Doe sued in November 2024 after being suspended for one day for using the boys’ bathroom and threatened with expulsion, which led his parents to withdraw him from in-person school for a time.20SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court Leaves Order in Place Allowing Transgender Student to Use Boys’ Bathroom In August 2025, the Fourth Circuit granted him an injunction allowing him to use the boys’ bathroom while his case proceeds, relying on Grimm. On September 10, 2025, the Supreme Court denied South Carolina’s emergency application to lift that injunction in an unsigned order, noting that the ruling was “based on the standards applicable for obtaining emergency relief” and did not reach the merits. Justices Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch dissented. The underlying case remains pending.21The New York Times. Supreme Court Transgender Bathroom Ruling
Idaho. Six transgender Idaho residents filed Jackson-Edney v. Labrador on April 30, 2026, challenging HB 752. On June 16, 2026, Chief U.S. District Judge Amanda Brailsford granted a preliminary injunction partially blocking enforcement, finding the plaintiffs likely to succeed in showing the law is “unconstitutionally vague” and could lead to “arbitrary enforcement” because it fails to give officers clear standards for determining what facilities are “reasonably available.” The order blocks criminal penalties where single-user restrooms do not exist or were not available at the time of use. The state attorney general’s office has said it plans to appeal.22Idaho Education News. Federal Judge Partially Blocks Criminal Bathroom Penalties for Transgender Idahoans
Montana. Five transgender and intersex plaintiffs challenged HB 121 in Perkins v. State of Montana. In May 2025, Missoula County District Court Judge Shane Vannatta granted a statewide preliminary injunction, treating sex and transgender status as “suspect classifications” under the Montana Constitution. Judge Vannatta called the state’s claim that the bill was not discriminatory “disingenuous” and found the state had not shown that transgender women in women’s facilities posed a safety or privacy threat.23Daily Montanan. Judge Extends Pause on Bathroom Bill With Preliminary Injunction The case is now in summary judgment, and the state has moved to disqualify the judge.24ACLU. Perkins et al. v. State
Oklahoma. Three anonymous transgender students and their families challenged SB 615 in Bridge v. Oklahoma State Department of Education. The district court dismissed the case and denied a preliminary injunction; the plaintiffs have appealed to the Tenth Circuit.5Lambda Legal. Bridge v. Oklahoma State Department of Education The law remains in effect.
What This Means for Students and Families
Roughly 300,100 youth ages 13 to 17 in the United States identify as transgender. A 2025 Williams Institute analysis found that about 298,600 of them — 41% of transgender youth nationwide — live in the 21 states with express bathroom prohibitions covering public schools or government buildings. When states with broader “sex definition” laws that could be read to restrict access are added, the number rises to about 348,400, or 48%.25Williams Institute. Anti-Trans Legislation and Youth
Research on the effects of restricted access documents consequences for students subject to these rules. The 2015 U.S. Transgender Survey found that 55% of respondents reported avoiding public restrooms when they needed to, 32% avoided eating or drinking to reduce bathroom trips, and 8% developed urinary tract infections or kidney problems as a result.26Williams Institute. Safety in Restrooms and Facilities One study found the suicide rate among transgender college students denied access to gender-consistent restrooms was 1.45 times higher than among those who were not.27Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law. Transgender Bathroom Policies Williams Institute research examining jurisdictions with inclusive bathroom policies, along with national crime data, found no increase in violent victimization by strangers in facilities that allow access based on gender identity.
For families trying to understand what applies to them, three things determine the rule: whether the state has a bathroom statute (and how broadly it reaches), which federal appeals circuit the state sits in, and whether a court has paused enforcement. A student in South Carolina or Virginia sits in Fourth Circuit territory where Grimm still controls; a student in Florida, Alabama, or Georgia sits under Adams. The Supreme Court has not yet decided which of those readings of Title IX is correct, and until it does, the answer to the bathroom question keeps changing depending on the state line, the courtroom, and the administration.