In West Virginia v. B.J.P., (Sup. Ct., June 20, 2026), the U.S. Supreme Court held that states may exclude transgender females from girls' and women's athletic teams without violating either Title IX or the 14th Amendment's Equal Protection Clause. The Court's opinion, written by Justice Kavanaugh, and joined by Chief Justice Roberts, and Justices Thomas, Alito, Gorsuch and Barrett said in part:
Notably, B. P. J. does not seriously contest that the term “sex” in Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the regulations means biological sex. Moreover, B. P. J. agrees ... that Title IX permits schools to maintain separate female and male teams and to prohibit most biological males from playing on women’s and girls’ teams. B. P. J. disagrees with West Virginia and the United States only about whether schools must make an exception to that general rule for biological males who identify as female and have taken puberty blockers or hormones.
But the texts of Title IX, the Javits Amendment, and the Title IX regulations do not say (or even hint) that schools must allow certain biological males to participate in women’s and girls’ sports....
Some percentage of biological males who identify as male possess physical and athletic capabilities that fall within (or below) the range of typical female physical and athletic capabilities. But the plaintiffs acknowledge that States may still exclude those biological males from women’s and girls’ sports, given the general physical differences between males and females.
And the Equal Protection Clause does not prohibit the States from applying that same principle to all biological males, including those who identify as female. In the distinctive sports context, in other words, the States may treat all biological males the same and treat all biological females the same, given the inherent physical differences between biological males and biological females.....
In so ruling, we emphasize one last point. Most of the biological female and transgender student-athletes who are involved in transgender sports disputes around the country are teenagers or in their early twenties. Those student athletes want to play sports. Their desire to compete warrants respect. No student-athlete on either side of the issue, whether a biological female or transgender, deserves to be ostracized or vilified.
Justice Thomas filed a concurring opinion, saying in part:
Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are. Sex is an immutable “biological” characteristic ...; it is binary; and “man” and “woman,” “boy” and “girl,” are the terms that correspond to adults and children of each sex.... To use language to obscure reality—to show “indifference regarding the truth”— is to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens “as equal[s].”...
Justice Gorsuch filed a concurring opinion, saying in part:
... Nothing in Title IX clearly and unambiguously alerts funding recipients that they are prohibited from restricting a school-sponsored sports team to biological women or girls....
Justice Sotomayor, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson filed an opinion concurring only in the judgment, saying in part:
... West Virginia might be right that transgender girls retain some inherent athletic advantage over cisgender girls due to their sex identified at birth even after receiving the hormonal therapy B. P. J. identifies. All agree, moreover, that States do have some room to legislate around issues when there exists significant, and genuine, scientific debate. At this point, however, neither the District Court nor the Fourth Circuit has passed upon any of the available evidence or made the necessary factual findings about the state of the scientific debate....
Justice Jackson filed an opinion concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part, saying in part:
... [T]he majority is wrong to suggest that the term “sex” in Title IX “cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex.”... Title IX makes room for individuals to live in the gender they choose; it cares not just about sex assigned at birth but also about individuals’ ability to match (or not) their gender presentation to their gender identity. Because West Virginia’s law forces B. P. J. to live—in this case, to play—as a boy though she is a girl, it might well run afoul of Title IX properly construed.
Reuters reports on the decision.