In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court upheld Idaho’s and West Virginia’s common-sense laws reserving women’s sports for women. That decision reflects basic biological reality — that women and men are different — and that those differences matter in athletics. The Supreme Court’s ruling that neither the Constitution nor Title IX prevents states from protecting women’s athletic opportunities will allow generations of girls to compete on an equal playing field.
Title IX was enacted in 1972 to promote equal academic and athletic opportunities for young women. My mom was an early beneficiary. Her rural New Mexico school had limited opportunities for women’s sports. Title IX changed that. For the first time, she and other female athletes were allowed to play basketball her senior year. Things weren’t perfect — administrators insisted on a half-court 6-on-6 format because they viewed the traditional game as too taxing — but female athletes were allowed to compete and to win.
Nearly half of states sllow MEN TO COMPETE IN WOMEN’S SPORTS
Title IX worked. Female participation in high school sports has exploded, growing by more than 1,000%. Generations of young women have discovered the gifts of discipline, teamwork, and resilience. They’ve competed, and they’ve won.
Yet all of those gains are under threat.
Nearly half of states allow men to compete in women’s sports. And when West Virginia and Idaho chose to protect women’s sports, the ACLU sued them, alleging that they were violating Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. Never mind that when male athletes who identify as women compete in women’s sports, girls lose. They lose podium spots. They lose records. They lose scholarships. They lose the chance to push their bodies to the limit and be the best. That is why the Supreme Court was correct to hold that neither Title IX nor the Constitution requires states to allow men in women’s sports.
The science is clear. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s opinion for the Court emphasized that boys and girls have “inherent physical differences relevant to athletic performance.” Those differences include “height, weight, strength, speed, endurance, and jumping ability” — advantages that create significant safety risks for female athletes competing against male athletes in contact sports. Those advantages often remain when males take puberty blockers or testosterone suppressors. And these physical differences “undermine competitive fairness.” That’s why schools have typically had separate men’s and women’s teams. And that’s why Title IX allows separate sports teams.
GOD MADE US MALE AND FEMALE. The Court has confirmed the may say so
This is not an abstraction. In Connecticut, female runners who trained for years to compete at the highest levels finished behind male competitors who took 15 titles at the state championships. Some female athletes lost the chance even to compete in the state meet to a male athlete.
B.P.J., the plaintiff in the West Virginia case, has displaced more than 470 girls competing in track and field over the course of just a few years. And despite puberty blockers, B.P.J. recently won the girls’ state Class AAA shot put championship with a personal best of nearly 39 feet. The second-place girl finished more than two feet shorter. As ADF attorney Suzanne Beecher observed, “the developments from the state meet … underscore the fact that no amount of testosterone suppression or intervention can undo the very real differences that males have over women.”
Crucially, in its landmark ruling affirming that states may protect a fair and safe category for female athletes, the Supreme Court held that the term “sex” in Title IX means “biological sex” — not gender identity. For those of us who hold a biblical worldview, this common-sense ruling is welcome.
Genesis tells us that God created human beings male and female. That is not a cultural artifact or a relic of patriarchy. It is the foundational reality of who we are. As none other than the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once recognized, the differences between men and women are not only enduring, but a cause for celebration.
On the Equal Protection claim, Kavanaugh explained that because the Idaho and West Virginia statutes limit women’s sports to biological females — and thus make a distinction based on sex — the states must show that the sex-based classification achieves an important government objective. The Court had no difficulty concluding that separating sports based on biological sex satisfied those tests. States, for example, have important “interests in safety and competitive fairness,” which they promote by “limiting women’s and girls’ sports to biological females.”
Despite the tremendous victory for women’s sports and common sense, the fight for fairness in women’s sports is not over. Approximately 21 states currently fail to protect women’s sports. What do we say to the girl in Washington who trained for four years and finished second — to a biological male? What do we say to the teenager in Vermont who quit her sport rather than share a locker room with someone she did not feel safe around? What do we say to a young woman who lost a college scholarship because she couldn’t beat biology? These are the women Title IX was enacted to protect.
God made us male and female. The Court has confirmed the law may say so. Now the work continues — to protect every girl who laces up her cleats, dives into a pool, or steps onto a track, trusting that the contest is fair.
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