CITIZEN: SCOTUS hears Save Women’s Sport’s case.

Our country may be taking a massive step towards sanity. On Tuesday, January 12, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in two cases regarding Save Girls’ Sports Laws: West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. These laws were intended to keep men out of women’s sports, but LGBTQ advocates challenged West Virginia’s and Idaho’s laws, ridiculously claiming they violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and/or Title IX.

The Family Foundation’s executive director, David Walls, and policy analyst, John Wehrle, were outside the Supreme Court during oral arguments, attending the Rally for Women’s Sports with advocates from across the country. Many people spoke at the rally, including University of Kentucky’s own Riley Gaines (pictured), explaining why laws preventing men from playing in women’s sports are necessary and common sense. The Family Foundation and over 200 female state legislators, including 13 from Kentucky, signed onto an amicus brief urging the Court to uphold such laws.

Our brief argues, “There is no serious dispute that, with respect to athletic competitions, women and men ‘are not similarly situated’—and that the relevant difference turns on biology, not on an individual’s interior sense of gender.” This clash between biology and one’s “interior sense of gender” came to a clash during the oral arguments numerous times. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson sought to legitimize founding discrimination in one’s interior sense of gender, instead of actual biology.

In sharp contrast, Justice Samuel Alito saw discrimination being founded in biological reality. Justice Alito asked Kathleen Hartnett, the attorney defending men who want to play on girls’ teams, if she could define what a man and a woman are, but, embarrassingly, the attorney was unable to. These exchanges show that there is more than a disagreement over the law taking place here. There is a conflict in worldviews.

In 2022 though, Kentuckians showed which side of the debate they’re on. That year the General Assembly passed SB 83, a Save Women’s Sports bill The Family Foundation supported, which was authored by Sen. Robby Mills and championed in the House by Rep. Ryan Dotson. We urge the Supreme Court to uphold these commonsense laws, biological reality, and a truthful understanding of the Constitution.