Supreme Court protects girls in sports, upholds biological reality

The U.S. Supreme Court’s June 30 decision in two cases protecting girls’ and women’s sports upheld states’ ability to enforce policies that exclude transgender athletes from female teams. The ruling arose as California served as a backdrop: for a second year, track and field athlete AB Hernandez, described in the article as a transgender athlete and “biological male,” won two state championships in late May. The article says a rule change before last year’s high school championship—linked to the threat of withheld funding—prevented Hernandez from “displacing” girls from competition, though Hernandez still received medals. The court concluded that the term “sex” in Title IX cannot be interpreted as anything other than biological sex, allowing Idaho and West Virginia and 25 other similar states to keep their laws in place. The decisions were issued from combined opinions authored by Justice Brett Kavanaugh, following arguments in January.