What is a woman? For most of human history, that question barely required a second thought. Across cultures, languages, and centuries, the answer was understood in the ordinary rhythms of life: family, biology, and the simple reality that men and women are distinct.
The concept wasn’t mysterious, controversial, or the subject of legal debate. It was recognized as a basic fact of human existence.
Yet in recent years, that once-obvious truth has been thrust into the center of a cultural and legal battle. What was long treated as common sense is now framed by activists and institutions as a complicated philosophical puzzle.
Courts, universities, and even some lawmakers increasingly speak of “gender identity” and the dubious “science” behind it as though it can override biological reality. The result is a strange moment in modern history: a society where a question that generations easily answered has suddenly become a political test, dividing those who still recognize a biological definition of womanhood from those who insist the meaning itself must be rewritten.
This truth was never more evident than when the states of Idaho and West Virginia gave oral arguments in front of the Supreme Court in the cases Little v. Hecox and State of West Virginia v. B.P.J. in January.
The ACLU can’t define “sex”
In January 2026, the Solicitors General of West Virginia and Idaho presented oral arguments to the Supreme Court in Hecox and BPJ. Both cases involved respective state laws that sought to enshrine protections for women and girls in sports.
During these oral arguments, some very telling exchanges occurred.
“For equal protection purposes, what does it mean to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?” asked Justice Samuel Alito.
Kathleen Hartnett of Cooley LLP, representing the challenger in the Idaho case, responded, “We do not have a definition [of sex] for the Court.”
“How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for equal protection purposes?” Alito said in a follow-up.
In the West Virginia case, Joshua Block, an attorney from the ACLU, only muddied the waters further. Responding to the same question, he said, “I think there are a whole range of sex-based characteristics that can give rise to discrimination.” In his argument, he also stated about Title IX (a law which prohibits “sex discrimination”), “… I don’t think the purpose of Title IX is to have an accurate definition of sex. I think the purpose is to make sure that sex isn’t being used to discriminate…”
Those non-answers from the ACLU and its co-counsel are telling—and quite concerning, given how simple it should be to produce a response to that question and given how the ACLU styles itself as a protector of women’s rights.
We’ve always known what a woman is
Despite the ACLU’s inability to give a definition of “sex,” history has shown that collectively, we’ve always known what women are. We’ve applauded women for milestone accomplishments—and never once questioned if they were actually women.
- When Jeanette Rankin became the first woman to be elected to Congress in 1917, nobody needed to ask her what her pronouns were.
- When women gained the right to vote after the 19th Amendment passed in 1919, there were no questions about whether these new voters were women.
- When Kathrine Switzer became the first woman to officially run in the Boston Marathon in 1967, no one struggled to understand why it mattered that a woman was finally registered to compete.
- When Title IX was passed in 1972, protecting women’s opportunities in education, lawmakers didn’t pause to debate what a “woman” meant in the first place.
- When Sandra Day O’Connor became the first female U.S. Supreme Court Justice in 1981, no one wondered whether the word “female” needed a new definition.
- When the WNBA was formed in 1996, the league didn’t have to clarify who it was created for.
- When Condoleezza Rice and Kamala Harris became the first women to serve as National Security Advisor and Vice President, respectively, nobody hesitated to laud these milestones as being meaningful for women.
For generations, the milestones that marked women’s progress in America only made sense because everyone understood what a woman was.
The activists of today may insist that the definition is fluid, unknowable, or too complex to state plainly, but history tells a markedly different story. From the ballot box to the marathon course, from the halls of Congress to the Supreme Court, women broke barriers that were real precisely because the category of womanhood is real.
ADF knows that the truth is far less complicated than modern gender ideology would have us believe: society has always known what a woman is—and the law shouldn’t pretend otherwise.
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