Photo: Alamy
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a decision that settles the question of whether states may ban transgender-identifying males from joining female sports teams.
In a decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J., the court ruled on whether sports teams have the right to determine eligibility based on biological gender (whether a girls’ team can be girls-only). The decision also applied to a second transgender athlete case based in Idaho.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority opinion.
“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. “In other words, may schools determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex? The answer is yes.”
Both West Virginia (Save Women’s Sports Act) and Idaho (Fairness in Women’s Sports Act) have passed laws mandating that athletic teams be based on biological sex rather than gender identity. The high court’s decision on Monday upholds those laws.
Kavanaugh highlighted the physical reality that men and women are different, and that “competitive fairness issues” may arise when females compete against males.
“With respect to safety, allowing biological males to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams can put women and girls at significant risk of injuries,” he wrote. “The safety risks are particularly severe in contact sports.”
He also noted that a male athlete on a female team could significantly deprive female counterparts of the ability to play, compete, and win.
“Allowing a biological male athlete to compete on a girls’ team necessarily displaces or disadvantages a female athlete—replacing her on the roster, knocking her out of the starting lineup, reducing her playing time, depriving her of a medal, and the like,” Kavanaugh stated. “That hard reality of sports cannot be ignored or swept under the rug.”
The ruling from the Supreme Court on this issue comes amid the Trump administration’s hard push to protect women’s sports. In February 2025, President Trump signed an executive order withholding funding from federal programs that discriminated against female athletes. He also signed an EO in January 2025 restoring the biological definitions of gender on the federal level.
The debate surrounding transgender athletes has been heated, but the Supreme Court’s decision is straightforward.
“Consistent with Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause, we hold that the States may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females,” Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion. “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.”
He emphasized that transgender athletes who wish to compete in sports, nevertheless, “warrants respect,” and that “no student-athlete on either side of the issue, whether a biological female or transgender, deserves to be ostracized or vilified.”
