At the Supreme Court, female athletes won — and so did the truth

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On Tuesday, all nine Supreme Court justices acknowledged that there are inherent physical differences between men and women. Their decision in State of West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox was a needed victory for every girl who refused to stay quiet in the face of injustice — and for the truth that men cannot be women.

The court ruled 9-0 that Title IX — a federal law that ensures equal opportunities for women in education — allows states to protect female athletes through sex-specific sports. It ruled 6-3 that the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment does so as well.

But Americans should ask how we became so confused that such a ruling was ever necessary in the first place.

My organization helped defend state laws protecting women’s sports, alongside Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador and West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey. The laws in question acknowledged a truth that was considered self-evident until recently: Biology creates real differences between the sexes in strength, speed, muscle mass, and physiology. No drug can erase those differences, but advocates of gender ideology have tried to erase many of the protections that arise from them, including on the athletic field and in locker rooms.

These policies that ignore biological truth hurt people, and the harms are widespread. The young male known as B.P.J., who sued West Virginia to block its law, has defeated more than 470 girls more than 1,400 times in high school track-and-field events, taking away opportunities and diminishing scholarship prospects for many young women. Just last month, B.P.J. won the women’s state championship in shot put.

B.P.J. also allegedly sexually harassed at least one girl, Adaleia Cross, whom my organization now represents, with such vulgar language that she left the sport entirely, because the school in question refused to address it. We also represent Kallie Keeler, a high school sophomore who recently sued Washington state officials after being sexually assaulted by a male opponent during a wrestling match.

These young women, and many others, are paying the price of a lie. Institutions adopted the fiction that subjective feelings about gender can override biological reality. They punished dissenters, and then they attempted to codify the lie into law.

They even attempted to reshape the definition of “sex” in Title IX, the law ensuring equal opportunity to women in education and athletics. Their aim was to exploit this law against the very women it was intended to protect.

Unfortunately, some lower courts went along. When the issue arrived at the Supreme Court, oral arguments were a parade of legal and biological confusion. Lawyers on the ACLU’s legal team were unable to define “sex” or “woman,” even though their cases were explicitly about sex discrimination.

If the Supreme Court had ruled in their favor, it would have set a precedent threatening women’s protections far beyond athletics — in locker rooms, restrooms, homeless shelters, prisons, and beyond. How can a legal system that cannot define “woman” be expected to protect women?

Thankfully, the Court agreed unanimously that Title IX allows states to protect women’s sports. But women would not have been the only victims. No one, left or right, can trust a justice system that turns lies into laws. Such a system coerces citizens into participating in their own deception. It forces coaches to pretend that lopsided competition is fair. It compels parents to ignore the harms to their own daughters. It asks society to shed the honesty and trust that make ordered liberty possible.

The media are acting as if the court answered a difficult question. Rather, it granted permission to answer an easy question.

Now, the 23 states lacking laws protecting women’s sports have no excuse. They should act quickly to ensure that every girl has fairness, privacy and equal opportunity.

Until then, this ruling is both a victory and a warning. The justices affirmed that the law may uphold truth. The question should never have been up for debate. The question now is not whether the law may protect girls’ and women’s sports, but whether it will.

Kristen Waggoner is CEO, president, and chief counsel of Alliance Defending Freedom.

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Raul Labrador

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