{"ID":63813,"name":"West Virginia v. B.P.J.","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/cases\/2025\/24-43","view_count":0,"docket_number":"24-43","additional_docket_numbers":null,"manner_of_jurisdiction":"Writ of \u003Ci\u003Ecertiorari\u003C\/i\u003E","first_party":"West Virginia, et al.","second_party":"B. P. J., By Her Next Friend and Mother, Heather Jackson","timeline":[{"event":"Granted","dates":[1751518800],"href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/case_timeline\/case_timeline\/55710"},{"event":"Argued","dates":[1768284000],"href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/case_timeline\/case_timeline\/55765"},{"event":"Decided","dates":[1782795600],"href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/case_timeline\/case_timeline\/55875"}],"lower_court":{"ID":9,"name":"United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit","href":"https:\/\/api.oyez.org\/taxonomy\/term\/9"},"facts_of_the_case":"\u003Cp\u003EB.P.J. is a transgender girl who has identified as female since the third grade. At the onset of puberty, B.P.J. began taking puberty blockers and estrogen for medical treatment of gender dysphoria, effectively halting male pubertal development and aligning her physical characteristics with those of cisgender girls. Since her social transition, B.P.J. has consistently lived as a girl at school and participated on girls\u2019 athletic teams. In 2021, West Virginia enacted the \u201cSave Women\u2019s Sports Act,\u201d which requires public school and collegiate sports teams to be designated based on \u201cbiological sex\u201d and excludes individuals identified as male at birth from participating on female teams. This law, by its design and effect, prevented B.P.J. from continuing to compete on her school\u2019s girls\u2019 cross-country and track teams.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EShortly after the Act took effect, B.P.J., through her mother, sued the West Virginia State Board of Education and other state and county education officials, as well as the West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission. She alleged that excluding her from girls\u2019 sports violated the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX. The State of West Virginia intervened to defend the law. Initially, the district court granted B.P.J. a preliminary injunction, allowing her to participate on girls\u2019 teams pending litigation. However, at summary judgment, the district court reversed course and upheld the law, concluding that the classification on the basis of \u201cbiological sex\u201d was substantially related to the important government interest in ensuring fairness and opportunity in girls\u2019 athletics. The court granted summary judgment to the defendants and denied B.P.J.\u2019s cross-motion, holding that the exclusion of B.P.J. from girls\u2019 sports did not violate the Constitution or Title IX. On appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reversed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. It held that application of the law to B.P.J. violated Title IX and that factual disputes precluded summary judgment against her equal protection claim.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u00a0\u003C\/p\u003E\n","question":"\u003Cp\u003EDoes Title IX or the Equal Protection Clause prohibit a state from assigning students to girls\u2019 and boys\u2019 sports teams based on their biological sex as determined at birth?\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u00a0\u003C\/p\u003E\n","conclusion":"\u003Cp\u003EDecided together with Little v. Hecox (No. 24-38) in a single opinion. Schools may limit women\u2019s and girls\u2019 sports teams to biological females under both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and states may determine eligibility for female sports based on biological sex alone. Justice Brett Kavanaugh authored the 6-3 majority opinion, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETitle IX \u2014 the 1972 law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded education programs \u2014 uses \u201csex\u201d to mean biological sex, as that term was commonly understood when Congress enacted the law in the early 1970s. The statute\u2019s implementing regulations, issued in 1975, expressly permit schools to maintain \u201cseparate teams for members of each sex\u201d to account for the inherent physical differences between biological males and females. A 1974 amendment to Title IX directed those regulations to include \u201creasonable provisions considering the nature of particular sports,\u201d and separate sex-based teams satisfy that reasonableness requirement precisely because biological males generally hold physical advantages in height, weight, strength, speed, and endurance. Nothing in Title IX\u2019s text, the 1974 amendment, or its implementing regulations requires schools to create exceptions allowing biological males who identify as female \u2014 including those who take puberty blockers or hormones \u2014 to compete on women\u2019s teams. The workplace discrimination rule from Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), which interpreted Title VII\u2019s employment protections, does not apply in the distinct context of sex-separated sports authorized by Title IX.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EUnder the Equal Protection Clause, laws that classify by sex must satisfy \u201cintermediate scrutiny\u201d \u2014 meaning the classification must be \u201csubstantially related\u201d to an \u201cimportant\u201d government interest. Safety and competitive fairness qualify as important interests, and limiting women\u2019s sports to biological females substantially relates to both. States need not conduct individual, athlete-by-athlete assessments of every biological male\u2019s physical capabilities, because a law\u2019s validity \u201cdepends on the relation it bears to the overall problem the government seeks to correct, not on the extent to which it furthers the government\u2019s interests in an individual case.\u201d The challenged laws classify on biological sex, not transgender status, and they survive constitutional review even against the argument that some transgender athletes who take hormones retain no physical advantage \u2014 a proposition that remains scientifically contested and on which legislatures, not courts, are better positioned to act.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EJustice Thomas concurred, arguing that transgender status is not a \u201csuspect class\u201d (a legal category commanding heightened judicial protection), and that laws affecting transgender people should receive only the most deferential form of constitutional review \u2014 rational basis \u2014 rather than intermediate scrutiny.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EJustice Gorsuch concurred, arguing that Title IX, as a Spending Clause statute (legislation that conditions federal funding on certain behavior), does not clearly and unambiguously prohibit schools from sponsoring single-sex sports teams, and that Bostock supports rather than undermines today\u2019s result because the two statutes address different contexts.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EJustice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, concurred in the Title IX ruling but dissented on equal protection, arguing that the majority improperly resolved a contested factual dispute about whether transgender girls who have never experienced male puberty and who receive gender-affirming treatment retain any athletic advantage \u2014 a dispute the lower courts should have resolved first \u2014 and that the majority\u2019s approach weakens the protection intermediate scrutiny provides against overbroad sex-based classifications.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EJustice Jackson separately concurred in part and dissented in part, joining Justice Sotomayor\u2019s full opinion and writing additionally to argue that the majority wrongly declared \u201csex\u201d in Title IX to mean only biological sex, a conclusion the Court did not need to reach and should have left open, given that Title IX\u2019s broader protections may extend to gender identity and sex stereotyping.\u003C\/p\u003E\n","advocates":[{"advocate":{"ID":63869,"name":"Michael R. 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