On June 30, 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) released a resounding decision that shook the nation from coast to coast. It held:
- 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.
- West Virginia and Idaho did not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment by maintaining female sports teams for biological females.
After years of various state and sport governing authorities subjecting women to unfair and unsafe competition under the ruse of “inclusion,” the Supreme Court finally affirmed that keeping women’s sports for women only is not discriminatory and, rather, is consistent with the Constitution and Title IX.
This decision does not, in itself, force every state to pass clarifying laws like the ones challenged in the cases, but it does send a message that should prompt every active legislator in the country. Even the worst offenders of replacing women in sports with men, like California Gov. Gavin Newsom, admit this “is an issue of fairness,” but hide behind progressive empathy to justify the over 500 women’s gold medals that men have stolen in his state.
Only 27 states have laws explicitly clarifying that only girls and women can compete in their distinct sex-based competitions. Concerned Women for America (CWA) and Young Women for America (YWA) leaders have been on the ground supporting these bills since the passage of the first bill in Idaho in 2020. The permissibility of these laws was challenged all the way to the highest court, where their Title IX discrimination grounds were unanimously affirmed.
As the states were nearly divided on their obligations under Title IX, the 9-0 opinion (in that regard) clarifies, “the term ‘sex’ in the 1972 Title IX statute, the 1974 Javits Amendment, and the 1975 Title IX regulations cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex.” This is a decisive end to the misapplication of federal law, asserting that “sex” in Title IX actually means “gender identity.”
So, while the question before the Court was not whether the states have to pass a bill identical to that of Idaho and West Virginia, their obligations under Title IX have crystallized. Therefore, while the remaining 23 states should certainly pass clarifying bills explicitly prohibiting men from competing on women’s sports teams, their obligations remain unchanged. No matter the state: men competing on a women’s sports team is illegal under Title IX.
This has been true for the last 54 years, and SCOTUS has once again affirmed it in its opinion last week. Sex under Title IX has always meant sex.
Citizens, alongside federal enforcement, must demand full state compliance. Their goals, which have proven even more progressive than the left-most Supreme Court Justices, have betrayed the women of their state and robbed them of their rightful Title IX guarantees.
Some states are already on their way. Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, for example, both considered bills this year to protect their female athletes on the basis of sex. In Pennsylvania, the measure passed the Senate, but the House shuffled it around committees and never brought the bill to a full vote. The Wisconsin Legislature passed protections through both chambers, but Gov. Tony Evers vetoed it. In some far-left states, voters have taken it into their own hands, as in Colorado, where a citizen-led initiative will ask voters on the ballot whether Colorado shall create a “new law restricting participation in all K-12 and collegiate school sports based on the participant’s sex … .”
CWA leaders have been on the front lines of this issue for nearly a decade, and clearly our work is not done yet. In light of the new SCOTUS decision, our state and federal representatives should be more energized than ever to keep girls’ sports for girls only.
