The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that states can keep biological males out of women's sports, affirming that Title IX protects sex-separated athletics based on biological sex — not gender identity — and that the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause doesn't require otherwise.

The decision immediately validates laws in more than two dozen states that restrict female athletic teams to biological females. It also strikes at the core of the transgender rights movement's legal project: redefining "sex" in federal law to mean "gender identity."

Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote for the majority: "The Constitution and Title IX do not require an overhaul of women's and girls's sports throughout America." The court found unanimously that "the term 'sex' in Title IX... cannot plausibly be interpreted to refer to anything other than biological sex," according to the Daily Caller's reporting on the opinion. On the constitutional question, the conservative majority ruled 6-3 that the state bans satisfy the Equal Protection Clause. The three liberal justices — Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson — agreed on the Title IX question but dissented on Equal Protection, arguing the constitutional issues warranted a different conclusion.

The cases centered on two transgender athletes. In West Virginia, 16-year-old Becky Pepper-Jackson, who has taken puberty-blocking medication and publicly identified as a girl since age 8, became a statewide champion in the shot put — beating the second-place finisher by two feet, according to the Anchorage Daily News. In Idaho, Lindsay Hecox sued for the chance to try out for Boise State women's track and cross-country but didn't make either squad because she "was too slow," her lawyer told the court, per Boston.com.

Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst defended the ban plainly: the law is "necessary for fair competition because, where sports are concerned, men and women are obviously not the same."

NBC News framed the ruling as "another major blow to LGBTQ rights" and noted it follows a string of losses for transgender people at the court. Breitbart called it a rejection of "elite-backed transgender activists who say the idea of self-selected 'gender' supersedes the role of biological sex in U.S. law and culture." What NBC buried and Breitbart spotlighted: the ruling doesn't mandate bans — it permits them. States that want to let biological males compete in women's sports, like Connecticut and California, still face lawsuits but weren't directly affected.

The ruling distinguishes the Court's 2020 Bostock decision, which held that workplace discrimination against transgender employees violates Title VII. Kavanaugh's majority emphasized that Title IX contains different statutory language and expressly contemplates sex-separated athletic teams.

Kavanaugh did express sympathy for transgender athletes, writing that "their desire to compete warrants respect" and they should not be "ostracized or vilified." But sympathy is not a legal mandate.

NCAA president Charlie Baker told Congress in 2024 he was aware of only 10 transgender athletes out of more than half a million college athletes. The Anchorage Daily News and Boston.com both noted this — but the issue has taken on outsize importance precisely because ordinary parents and female athletes have pushed back against the erosion of their competitive spaces.

The court didn't close the door on all future claims. Kavanaugh noted that early-transitioning athletes like Pepper-Jackson might argue they lack typical male physical advantages. That question remains unresolved. For now, the court said what common sense already knew: sex means sex, and women's sports means women.