Op-Ed: Supreme Court Must Keep Women Sports for Women

Juliet Procope, DE - Editor & Director of Marketing

The Supreme Court is currently set to decide whether states can require athletes to compete in competition based on biological sex by this June, a ruling that will reshape school sports policies nationwide and could potentially redefine the balance between federal law and state authority. 

The Court is reviewing two closely watched cases, West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, both challenging laws that limit participation on girls’ teams to biological females. This decision has the potential to preserve fairness and protect the opportunities Title IX was designed to secure for female athletes due to the longstanding recognition of biological differences in athletic competition. 

The political left has contended that existing laws unfairly exclude transgender students and violate constitutional protections, but the Javits Amendment to Title IX (1974) permits schools to maintain separate teams for each sex when competitive fairness requires it, and courts previously have recognized that classifying sports participation by biological sex can serve the important interest of preserving opportunities for female athletes.

The cases before the Court arise from two states that enacted laws aimed at preserving sex-based categories in school athletics. In West Virginia v. B.P.J., the state passed the “Save Women’s Sports Act,” (2021) mandating that public school and college athletic teams be classified according to biological sex, barring individuals assigned male at birth from competing on female teams. 

This law affected a transgender student who had identified as female since elementary school and had participated on girls’ athletic teams after taking puberty blockers and estrogen. When the law took effect, she was no longer allowed to compete on her school’s girls’ cross-country and track teams, and, through her mother, filed suit against state education officials, arguing that the policy violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.

A federal district court initially permitted her to continue competing while the case proceeded but later upheld the law, concluding that classifying teams by biological sex was related to the state’s interest in preserving fairness in girls’ athletics. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit subsequently reversed parts of that decision, ruling that applying the law to the student violated Title IX and that her constitutional claims required further review, leading to the Supreme Court.

The second case, Little v. Hecox, involves “Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” (2020), one of the first statewide bans of its kind. The law barred transgender girls and women from competing on female sports teams. The statute requires that teams designated for females “shall not be open to students of the male sex” and applies across all public schools and levels of competition, from elementary programs to college athletics. Idaho officials argued the law was intended to protect opportunities for female athletes by maintaining biological sex categories, citing physiological differences that can affect performance.

A transgender student at Boise State University who sought to compete on the women’s cross-country team challenged this, joined by another high school athlete, asserting that it violated the Equal Protection Clause. A federal district court blocked the law shortly after its passage, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit later upheld that injunction as applied to the college athlete while sending the case back for further consideration.

The dispute raises the constitutional question before the Supreme Court: whether states may require athletes to compete according to biological sex rather than gender identity in order to preserve women’s athletic opportunities.

Research in sports medicine shows that significant physical differences emerge during puberty due to testosterone, affecting muscle mass, strength, speed, and endurance. Adult males outperform similarly trained females in many athletic events by roughly 10 to 30 percent—a gap large enough to determine outcomes in competitive sports. Despite minimal performance differences between boys and girls before puberty, adult males are faster, stronger, and more powerful than females due to anatomical and physiological differences. During puberty, male testosterone levels increase dramatically and are 15 times higher than female levels by adulthood.

Another source says male runners outperform female runners by approximately 10 to 12 percent in endurance running events. Males possess about 25 to 40 percent greater skeletal muscle mass than females, which contributes to higher force production and speed. On the contrary, females generally have a higher body fat percentage and lower lean muscle mass. In addition, males typically have a higher maximum oxygen uptake, which is a significant aspect of endurance performance.

This shows the complexity behind the question being faced by our lawmakers and the Court: how to balance inclusion with the original purpose of women’s athletics. Title IX notably transformed opportunities for female athletes because it recognized that equal treatment does not always mean identical rules in competitive contexts.

The modern left has become so consumed by political correctness that it is willing to ignore biological reality and gamble with the future and safety of women’s sports to avoid offending activists. They are driven by politics, not reality.

This is a matter of safety and equity in women’s sports—not discrimination.

The Supreme Court’s decision will determine whether states retain the authority to structure athletics according to those longstanding principles or whether a uniform national standard will replace them. Whatever the outcome, the ruling will shape not only the future of athletics but also the interpretation of Title IX and the role of states in education policy. For female athletes whose opportunities depend on fair competition, the stakes could not be higher.