On Tuesday, the Supreme Court returned a major Title IX decision regarding women's sports, or more specifically, the practice of allowing "transgender women" - men - to compete on women's sports teams and contests. The decision is based on two cases:
There are two challengers – both transgender women – in two separate cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., which will be argued on the same day, Tuesday, Jan. 13. One challenger is Lindsay Hecox, now 24 years old, who filed this lawsuit when seeking to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. Hecox did not make the NCAA teams at BSU but competes at the club level.
The other challenger is B.P.J., a 15-year-old high school student who has publicly identified as female since the third grade. B.P.J. takes medicine to stave off the onset of male puberty and has also begun to receive hormone therapy with estrogen. B.P.J’s mother, Heather Jackson, went to court on her child’s behalf when she learned that the West Virginia law would bar B.P.J. from participating on the girls’ middle school sports teams.
Two state statutes led to this case being litigated at SCOTUS:
Idaho’s law, enacted in 2020, is known as the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. The first of its kind in the United States, the law imposes a flat ban on the participation of transgender women and girls on women’s and girls’ sports teams in public schools at all levels, from elementary school through college.
The West Virginia law at the center of that case, the Save Women’s Sports Act, was enacted in 2021. It bars transgender women and girls from participating on women’s and girls’ sports team in public secondary schools and colleges.
With today's decision, the Supreme Court, putting it broadly, appears to have affirmed that girls' and women's sports may be restricted to girls and women.
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The court holds that schools can determine eligibility for women's and girls' sports teams based on biological sex.
The court holds that West Virginia did not violate Title IX, which bars educational programs that receive federal funding from discriminating based on sex.
The court also says that West Virginia and Idaho did not violate the Constitution's equal protection clause by maintaining female sports teams for biological females.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the opinion. Justices Roberts, Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch, and Barrett joined in the majority opinion, with Thomas and Gorsuch filing concurring opinions. Justice Sotomayor filed an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson - so, the decision would appear to be right along ideological lines.
Here's a key excerpt from the decision:
Those “[p]hysical differences between men and women” are “enduring.” United States v. Virginia, 518 U. S. 515, 533 (1996). The differences include, among other things, height, weight, strength, speed, endurance, and jumping ability. Therefore, in contact sports, forcing female athletes to compete against males can create significant safety risks. And in virtually all competitive sports, forcing female athletes to compete against males can undermine competitive fairness.
To ensure equal opportunity for female athletes, schools therefore typically maintain separate women’s and men’s sports teams. Women’s teams compete against other women’s teams, and men’s teams compete against other men’s teams. To ensure equal opportunity, Title IX’s regulations also require schools to provide the women’s and men’s teams equivalent equipment, facilities, scheduling, and the like.
That is an apt summary of the facts of human biology, and this decision is a victory for advocates of women's sports.
You can read the entire decision here.
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