E104 Supreme Court Weighs In on States Limiting Transgender Participation in Girls’ School Sports

In this episode, host Sloan Simmons is joined by Lozano Smith’s Title IX Practice Group Co-Chairs, Sarah Fama and Monica Batanero, to discuss the Supreme Court’s opinion on two cases addressing transgender participation in girls’ school athletics:  West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox.  The discussion covers the Court’s holdings, legal reasoning, and implications for schools navigating student participation, safety, and competitive fairness. The episode also explores the impact on California schools, including related Title IX issues, pending litigation, and challenges to California’s existing legal framework.

Show Notes & References

1:28 – Supreme Court rulings in West Virginia v. B.P.J. (2026) 609 U.S.

2:25 – Background on B.P.J. and Hecox cases

5:32 – What the Supreme Court decided

6:50 – Reasoning and analysis of the Court

8:00 – Justice Brett Kavanaugh, writing for the majority: “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. The ordinary meaning of the term ‘sex’ at the time of enactment in the early 1970s was biological sex and not gender identity, particularly in the sports context.”

9:17 – Safety and competitive fairness

11:56 – Bostock v. Clayton County Georgia (2020) 590 U.S. 644 – (Client News Brief 86 – December 2020)

15:12 – Biological females who identify as male in male sports

17:31 – Concurrences and dissents of justices

19:16 – What happens now?  The state of the law in California