WASHINGTON • The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld state laws barring transgender girls and women from playing on school athletic teams.

The court’s conservative majority ruled that state bans in Idaho and West Virginia don’t violate the U.S. Constitution or the federal law known as Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in education.

What the decision means for Colorado remains less certain.

While more than two dozen Republican-led states that have adopted bans on transgender girls and women participating in female sports, Colorado has gone in the opposite direction, expanding the legal rights of transgender residents over the years. In more recent years, Democrats who dominate the state Capitol, have also sought to penalize “deadnaming” and “misgendering” as discriminatory actions and to mandate the courts to include such claims in determining the allocation of parenting time in custody cases.

Officials with the state’s largest school district, Denver Public Schools, said Tuesday the ruling would not change high school athletics in Colorado.

“We do not anticipate any disruptions or changes to our athletic programs or student participation as a result of this ruling,” district spokesman Scott Pribble said.

The ruling also comes as Jeffco Public Schools battles the Trump administration over allegations the district allows transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports.

Federal officials have threatened to withhold $98 million in funding, though district officials say the 61 students identified by the federal government as “male students” participating in girls’ sports are team managers, athletic trainers and mascots — not athletes.

Julie Tolleson, the district’s chief legal counsel, said Tuesday she does not expect the Supreme Court’s decision to affect the dispute.

“I really don’t see that it’s going to play into (the lawsuit) because all it really says is if one state wants to ban transgender athletes, they can,” Tolleson said.

The funding threat comes as Jeffco continues working to stabilize its finances. The district ended the fiscal year Tuesday after closing a roughly $50 million budget gap. It is projecting a funding gap of about $13 million for the coming school year, district spokeswoman Devra Ashby said.

Meanwhile, Colorado voters will decide this November whether to prohibit gender surgeries for minors and bar public funding or insurance coverage for procedures that alter children’s biological sex characteristics.

Reaction to the decision predictably split along ideological lines.

“This is a victory for every girl who refused to stay quiet in the face of injustice,” Alliance Defending Freedom CEO and Chief Legal Counsel Kristen Waggoner said in a statement. “Men cannot be women, and no drug erases the male athletic advantage.”

U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colorado, called the decision a “setback” for LGBTQ+ Americans.

“This ruling allowing state bans targets a small group of people and sends a message that transgender students do not belong, increasing the risk of harassment and bullying,” Bennet said in a statement.

In a statement posted on social media, Colorado House Republicans said the ruling would “protect women’s sports across the country.”

“This decision established a new precedent moving forward, one that the Colorado House Republicans will take seriously in our continued fight for the rights of every female athlete in the great state of Colorado,” the caucus said.

Underpinning the court’s rationale is its conclusion that biological differences between males and females are unequivocal, and that, “in virtually all competitive sports, forcing female athletes to compete against males can undermine competitive fairness.”

“The States argue — and the Court agrees — that the interests of safety and competitive fairness are important interests for purposes of equal protection analysis. And the States’ sex-based classification — limiting women’s and girls’ sports to biological females — is substantially related to those interests,” the court said.

“The underlying medical and scientific premise of the equal protection challenge here is that at least some biological males who identify as female and take puberty blockers or hormones do not retain physical advantages over biological females. That premise is the subject of ongoing medical and scientific debate. Even if true, that empirical claim would not alter the equal protection conclusion set forth above,” the court added.

More than two dozen other Republican-led states have adopted bans on female transgender athletes, and the decision seems certain to extend to them as well.

Left unresolved by the outcome are lawsuits challenging state laws and regulations in Connecticut, California and elsewhere that permit transgender athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity.

The plaintiff, Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 16-year-old high school sophomore in Bridgeport, West Virginia, has been taking puberty-blocking medication, has publicly identified as a girl since age 8 and has been issued a West Virginia birth certificate identifying her as female. Becky Pepper-Jackson is the only known transgender person who has sought to compete in girls sports in West Virginia.

Pepper-Jackson was a back-of-the-pack cross-country runner in middle school and won statewide champion in the shot put. Becky Pepper-Jackson beat the second-place finisher by 2 feet in last month’s West Virginia championship meet.

In the Idaho case, Lindsay Hecox sued over the state’s first-in-the-nation ban for the chance to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. Hecox didn’t make either squad because the athlete “was too slow,” her lawyer, Kathleen Hartnett, told the court during arguments in January. Hecox competed in club-level soccer and running.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.