In a healthy constitutional republic, courts interpret laws; they do not redefine reality. Judges are charged with reading legal texts, not resolving questions of basic human biology that ordinary citizens have understood for centuries. Yet our cultural moment has produced an inversion: courts are increasingly asked to decide whether obvious truths about sex still count as truths at all.
That tension was on full display during yesterday’s Supreme Court arguments challenging state laws in West Virginia and Idaho that reserve girls’ and women’s sports for girls and women. These cases are not really about athletics. They are about whether the law must affirm a fiction—namely, that biological sex is either unknowable or irrelevant.
Why Female Sports Exist at All
Sex-segregated sports exist for a reason. Biological differences between males and females are real, measurable, and consequential—especially in competitive athletics, where strength, speed, and endurance matter not only for fairness but also for safety.
Female sports were created precisely because competing against males would disadvantage women and girls. To claim that excluding males from female sports is discriminatory misses the point entirely. The distinction is not arbitrary; it is grounded in biology.
That is why these cases almost always involve males seeking access to female sports rather than the reverse. Males who identify as female are not barred from sports altogether. They are barred from competing as females.
Sex Discrimination—or Biological Reality?
The challengers argue that laws preserving female-only sports constitute unlawful sex discrimination under the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX. But this argument collapses on contact with reality.
Sex-based distinctions are not inherently unjust. The law has long recognized that some forms of sex discrimination are legitimate when they reflect real biological differences rather than irrational prejudice. This is why sex-based classifications receive less stringent judicial scrutiny than race-based ones. Biology is not bigotry.
Female-only sports discriminate on the basis of sex by design—and rightly so.
The Question That Ends the Debate
During oral arguments, Justice Alito asked the question that cuts through all the legal gymnastics: What does “sex” mean for purposes of equal protection and federal civil rights law? How can courts determine whether discrimination has occurred if they cannot define the category at issue?
The response was astonishing. The challengers conceded that they had no definition. Sex, we were told, has no fixed legal meaning.
That should have ended the case.
When Congress prohibited discrimination “on the basis of sex,” it used a word with a clear, public meaning—one rooted in biology and universally understood when those laws were enacted. If that definition governs, laws protecting female sports are plainly lawful. If federal law is silent, then states are entitled to define sex reasonably for themselves. Either way, a biological definition cannot violate federal law.
The Absurd Alternative
The only alternative offered is worse: a system in which schools must police hormone levels, medical histories, and bodily alterations to determine who qualifies as female enough to compete. Such a regime would be invasive, unworkable, and deeply unjust—especially to girls.
The truth is neither complicated nor cruel. Boys are not girls. Men are not women. A legal system that cannot say so is not advancing equality; it is abandoning reality.
Companion Post
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Celebrate God’s Good Creation