The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled 6-3 that state laws protecting girls’ sports from male competitors do not violate Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The opinion (West Virginia v. B.J.P.), written by Justice Brett Kavanaugh and joined by all the court’s conservatives, reversed decisions by the Fourth and Ninth Circuit blocking state laws in West Virginia and Idaho, respectively.

“A victory for biology and women’s sports!” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins celebrated the news. “The Supreme Court could not dodge the cultural chaos ball it created with the redefinition of marriage. Like the American people, who are connecting the dots and changing their minds on the reordering of society with the redefining of marriage, maybe the Court will eventually find its way back. This is a good first step.”

State laws reserving women’s sports for biological females in both West Virginia and Idaho were challenged by male student athletes identifying as women. The West Virginia plaintiff, identified in the case simply as “B.P.J.” because he is still a minor, won a girls’ state championship in shot put and finished fourth in discus throw while litigation was under way, the court noted. He began taking transgender hormones before puberty and argued that should allow him to compete in female sports.

In January 2026, two female student athletes publicly accused B.P.J. of harassment. One girl quit the track-and-field team rather than share a locker room with the boy, who she accused of threatening to rape her. She complained that the school promised a full investigation, and then nothing happened. A girl who competed for another school accused B.P.J. of “intimidation tactics” such as staring and stalking after she and her teammates refused to compete against him and were subsequently disqualified.

The Idaho plaintiff, Lindsay Hecox underwent male puberty and began taking transgender hormones in college. In October 2025, Hecox attempted to withdraw his lawsuit — for “mootness,” the ACLU argued — once it was already scheduled for arguments before the Supreme Court. The motion to dismiss the case at that late stage was rejected.

West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act prevailed in district court but lost before the Fourth Circuit. Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act lost in district court and again before the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court reversed both circuit courts.

The court addressed Title IX and Equal Protection in separate sections. Both laws were challenged on Equal Protection grounds, but only West Virginia’s law was challenged on Title IX grounds.

“The question is whether Title IX permits schools to maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females. The answer is yes,” the court stated. “The ordinary meaning of the term ‘sex’ at the time of enactment in the early 1970s was biological sex and not gender identity, particularly in the sports context.”

“In addition, the Title IX regulations allowed separate sports teams precisely because of the biological differences between the sexes — namely, the inherent physical differences between biological women and biological men,” the court added. “Allowing a biological male athlete to compete on a girls’ team necessarily displaces or disadvantages a female athlete — replacing her on the roster, knocking her out of the starting lineup, reducing her playing time, depriving her of a medal, and the like.”

“Notably, B. P. J. does not seriously contest that the term ‘sex’ in Title IX … means biological sex,” the court observed. He only argued that “schools must make an exception to that general rule for biological males who identify as female and have taken puberty blockers or hormones.”

The court also rejected the argument that the 2020 Bostock decision, which redefined Title VII employment discrimination on the basis of “sex” to include sexual orientation and gender identity, required them to redefine “sex” in Title IX as well.

“Title VII concerns employment, whereas Title IX as relevant here focuses on sports. The two factual contexts are vastly different. And the two statutes are also ‘vastly different,’” the court contended. “In the workplace, Title VII generally requires that men and women be treated without regard to their sex. In the sports context, by contrast, Title IX authorizes separate men’s and women’s sports teams. … Stated simply, Title VII and Bostock are not relevant in this very different statutory and factual context.”

The court then turned to the Equal Protection argument. “The equal protection questions become: What are the States’ interests in maintaining separate teams for males and females, and in limiting female teams to biological females? And is the States’ sex-based classification — that is, the limitation of women’s and girls’ sports teams to biological females — substantially related to those interests?”

“The States start with the undisputed proposition that biological males generally possess inherent physical advantages in sports — in height, weight, strength, speed, endurance, jumping ability, and the like,” the court recited. “Therefore, the States say, limiting women’s and girls’ sports to biological females (i) helps prevent serious physical injuries to female athletes and (ii) preserves opportunities for female athletes to fairly compete and succeed.”

“Based on all of the above, the States argue — and we agree — that the interests in safety and competitive fairness are important 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 concluded.

As with the Title IX challenge, the trans-identifying athletes did not challenge this ironclad analysis so much as ask for a special exemption. “They contend that safety and competitive fairness, while sufficient reasons to exclude most biological males, do not justify excluding a relatively small subclass of biological males — namely, those biological males who identify as female and have taken puberty blockers or hormones.”

The court rejected this argument as well. “Not every biological male athlete is bigger, stronger, faster, or otherwise more athletically able than every biological female athlete,” the court stated. “Some percentage of biological males who identify as male possess physical and athletic capabilities that fall within (or below) the range of typical female physical and athletic capabilities. But the plaintiffs acknowledge that States may still exclude those biological males from women’s and girls’ sports, given the general physical differences between males and females.”

Furthermore, “the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the States from applying that same principle to all biological males, including those who identify as female,” the court said. “In short, States are not required to conduct an individual-by-individual comparison of the physical and athletic capabilities of all biological males in order to satisfy intermediate scrutiny.”

“If a school had a co-ed sports team but prohibited all transgender individuals from participating on the team, that would be a distinct transgender classification,” contrasted the court. But such a case “would presumably not be analyzed and justified as a classification based on biological sex,” as the laws of West Virginia and Idaho were. “That said, even if the laws made a transgender or gender-identity classification, this Court ‘has not previously held’ that intermediate or other heightened scrutiny applies to a transgender or gender-identity classification.”

The case generated four additional opinions. Justice Thomas wrote separately to make the point that “transgender status is not a suspect class requiring heightened equal-protection scrutiny,” and the point that “men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are. Sex is an immutable ‘biological’ characteristic. … To use language to obscure reality — to show ‘indifference regarding the truth’ — is to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens ‘as equal[s].’”

Justice Gorsuch wrote separately to emphasize that “Title IX was enacted as an exercise of Congress’ powers under the Spending Clause,” and thus “does not allow Congress to regulate conduct,” only spending. If there are any regulatory strings attached, “Congress must ‘clearly and unambiguously’ specify” them, so that funding recipients can “‘voluntarily and knowingly’ assent.” Gorsuch also reaffirmed his own idiosyncratic view of his Bostock opinion, which he argues “supports, not undermines, the Court’s conclusion” in B.P.J.

Justice Sotomayor wrote for the three liberal justices in what was essentially a dissent (although technically, the opinion was “concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part”). As Sotomayor summarized her position, “I agree that B.P.J.’s Title IX claim fails, although on a narrower basis than that on which the majority relies. As for B.P.J.’s equal protection claim, however, the majority, at this stage of the litigation, gets the answer wrong.”

Justices Kagan and Jackson joined Sotomayor’s opinion, but Justice Jackson wrote separately to claim that the court “should not have” held “that Title IX protects against discrimination solely on the basis of ‘biological sex.’ … Instead, the Court should have assumed as much while leaving open the possibility that Title IX’s definition of ‘sex’ is more capacious.”

To these critiques, the majority responded, “The Court’s holding today is straightforward. The Equal Protection Clause allows schools to maintain separate teams for female and male athletes. Schools may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ teams based on biological sex. That policy is constitutionally justified by the vitally important interests in safety and competitive fairness so as to provide equal opportunities for women and girls to participate in sports.”

Significantly, the Supreme Court made explicit what everyone already knew about the differences between males and females, but which many feared to say aloud, lest they be called “hateful.”

“As all agree, females and males have inherent physical differences relevant to athletic performance,” the court explained. “The differences include, among other things, height, weight, strength, speed, endurance, and jumping ability. … For those reasons, 27 States — as well as the International Olympic Committee, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, and the NCAA — have banned all biological males from competing in women’s and girls’ sports.”

A law passed 50 years ago and a constitutional amendment from the 19th century do not force states into a different position.