The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states may ban biological males from competing in women’s and girls’ sports at publicly funded schools, delivering a 6-3 decision that upholds laws already on the books in more than two dozen states. Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority, framed the question in plain terms and answered it just as plainly.
“The question before the Court is: Under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, may schools maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females?” Kavanaugh wrote. “The answer is yes.”
The ruling resolves two cases, West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, that had worked their way through federal courts for years. One involved Becky Pepper-Jackson in West Virginia. The other involved Lindsey Hecox, a biological male who was prevented from trying out for the Boise State University varsity women’s track team in Idaho. Both cases challenged state laws requiring athletes to compete based on biological sex at birth. Both challenges failed.
Kavanaugh’s majority opinion walked through the full statutory architecture of Title IX, starting with the law’s passage in 1972 and tracing it through the 1974 Javits Amendment and the 1975 regulations issued by the then-Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Those regulations required schools to provide equal athletic opportunity for members of both sexes and expressly authorized separate teams “where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill or the activity involved is a contact sport.”
The opinion left no ambiguity about what “sex” means in this context. As National Review reported, Kavanaugh wrote that “the term sex in Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the Title IX regulations cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex.”
That conclusion carried consequences. The Court found that state laws defining eligibility by biological sex do not classify based on gender identity or transgender status. Kavanaugh cited the Court’s earlier decision in Skrmetti (605 U.S., at 517) as precedent on that point. The classification, the majority held, “readily satisfies rational basis review or intermediate scrutiny.”
“The argument that the challenged laws unconstitutionally discriminate against transgender individuals is unavailing.”
The majority also addressed the medical debate head-on. Kavanaugh acknowledged that some argue biological males who take puberty blockers or hormones do not retain physical advantages over biological females. But he called that premise “the subject of ongoing medical and scientific debate”, and said that even if true, it would not change the equal protection analysis.
The Court’s recent willingness to overturn long-standing precedent when the law demands it has been a defining feature of this term. Tuesday’s ruling fits that pattern, not by overturning precedent, but by refusing to create new constitutional rights where the text does not support them.
Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson filed partial dissents. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote that there was “reason to doubt the soundness of the concession that Title IX’s reference to ‘sex’ means only sex assigned at birth.”
That phrasing, “sex assigned at birth”, tells you everything about where the dissent starts. It treats biological sex as a bureaucratic label rather than an observable fact. The majority rejected that framing entirely.
The gap between the majority and the dissent is not a disagreement about the margins. It is a disagreement about whether biological sex is a real category that the law can recognize. Six justices said yes. Three said they had doubts.
The ruling does not impose a nationwide ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports. It does something arguably more durable: it gives every state clear legal authority to enact its own protections. As the New York Post reported, the decision creates a state-by-state framework similar to the post-Dobbs landscape on abortion, leaving states like California and Connecticut free to allow transgender athletes to compete while validating the 27 states that have already drawn the line at biological sex.
Those 27 states include Florida and Texas. West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act and Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act were the specific statutes at issue, but the Court’s reasoning extends to every similar law. The Washington Examiner noted the ruling gives all states “legal clarity to enact similar protections for female athletes.”
West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey called the decision a “monumental victory for every female athlete who has ever competed, or dreamed of competing, on a fair and safe playing field.” Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the ruling “affirms the common sense right of states to prohibit men from competing in women’s sports, safeguard the integrity of female spaces, and ensure no woman faces discrimination on the basis of sex.”
The Court has been active this term on several fronts. It recently delivered major wins on asylum and deportation policy, and its willingness to let elected bodies make policy rather than imposing judicial mandates has become a consistent thread.
The majority opinion did not treat women’s sports as an abstraction. Fox News reported that Kavanaugh wrote directly about what competition means to the women and girls involved: “Sports are highly competitive and generally zero sum. Women and girls who play sports care deeply about all of those things.”
That line matters because it acknowledges something the broader debate has often tried to obscure. Every roster spot taken by a biological male is a roster spot denied to a biological female. Every medal, every scholarship, every podium finish. The Court recognized that these are not symbolic stakes. They are real losses borne by real women.
The opinion’s holding was direct, as Breitbart reported:
“Consistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the States may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females. They may determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex. The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America.”
President Trump responded on Truth Social, writing: “The United States Supreme Court just RULED AGAINST MEN PLAYING IN WOMEN’S SPORTS. Wow! That takes that ridiculous situation off the table!!!” Trump had signed an executive order on February 5, 2025, declaring it “the policy of the United States to rescind all funds from educational programs that deprive women and girls of fair athletic opportunities.”
This term has produced a string of consequential decisions. The Court also unanimously struck down the federal gun ban for marijuana users and sided with states on counting mail-in ballots, reinforcing a pattern of decisions that return authority to elected legislatures and limit federal overreach.
For years, the transgender-athlete debate played out in school board meetings, state legislatures, and lower courts, with advocates insisting that any distinction based on biological sex amounted to unconstitutional discrimination. That argument now has a definitive answer from the highest court in the country. It lost, 6-3.
The ruling does not resolve every question. States that choose to allow biological males in women’s competitions remain free to do so. Private institutions not receiving federal financial assistance may operate under different rules. And the medical debate over whether hormone therapy eliminates physical advantages will continue in labs and journals.
But the constitutional question is settled. States that protect women’s sports based on biological sex are not violating the Fourteenth Amendment. They are not violating Title IX. They are exercising the same authority that Congress contemplated when it passed the Javits Amendment in 1974 and that HEW codified in 1975.
Title IX was written to give women and girls a fair shot. Fifty-four years later, the Supreme Court confirmed that it still means what it says.
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