The Supreme Court handed a victory down to conservatives and purveyors of common sense, ruling Tuesday states can ban biological boys who believe they are girls from competing in women’s sports in publicly-funded schools.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh penned the 6-3 majority’s opinion, which essentially determined that Title X allows sex-segregated athletic teams. Therefore, states can make such determinations accordingly.
“The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women’s and girls’ sports throughout America,” the opinion reads.
The ruling states in part that “Title IX allows schools to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex, and West Virginia has permissibly maintained female sports for biological females consistent with Title IX”:
Title IX provides: “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance.” 20 U. S. C. §1681(a). Two years after Title IX became law in 1972, Congress passed the Javits Amendment, which directed the then-Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) to promptly issue “regulations implementing the provisions of ” Title IX with respect to “the prohibition of sex discrimination.” §844, 88 Stat. 612. The amendment further specified that the regulations “shall include with respect to” “athletic activities reasonable provisions considering the nature of particular sports.” Ibid. (emphasis added). In 1975, HEW promulgated comprehensive regulations requiring that schools provide “equal athletic opportunity for members of both sexes” and authorizing “separate teams for members of each sex where selection for such teams is based upon competitive skill or the activity involved is a contact sport.” 34 CFR §§106.41(b), (c). Pp. 8–10.
Further, Kavanaugh writes that the argument that the “challenged laws unconstitutionally discriminate against transgender individuals is unavailing.”
“Under this Court’s decision in Skrmetti, the challenged laws do not classify based on gender identity or transgender status, see 605 U. S., at 517, but instead on the basis of biological sex,” the majority determined. “The classification at issue readily satisfies rational basis review or intermediate scrutiny.”
It continunes:
The underlying medical and scientific premise of the equal protection challenge here is that at least some biological males who
identify as female and take puberty blockers or hormones do not retain physical advantages over biological females. That premise is the subject of ongoing medical and scientific debate. Even if true, that empirical claim would not alter the equal protection conclusion.
Kavanaugh notes that there are over two dozen other states that have determined that biological girls should be the only individuals competing against each other “on an equal playing field, without fear of physical injury from biological males or being forced to compete against biological males.”
Emphasis added:
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.
Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was among those who dissented, asserting that there is “reason to doubt the soundness of the concession that Title IX’s reference to ‘sex’ means only sex assigned at birth.”
The cases before the court involved two transgender athletes – a biological man named Lindsey Hecox who was prevented from trying out for the Boise State University varsity women’s track team and Becky Pepper-Jackson in West Virginia.