Law & Principles

U.S. Supreme Court decision vindicates Oklahoma’s girls’ sports law

June 30, 2026

Ray Carter

In a 6-3 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court held that states may prohibit males from participating in women’s athletic events, declaring the U.S. Constitution and federal law allow schools “to provide separate women’s and men’s sports teams defined by biological sex.”

“Separate sports teams for biological males and biological females are reasonable: Given the inherent physical differences between the sexes, allowing only biological females to play on women’s and girls’ teams can reduce the risk of physical injury and ensure fair competition,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in the majority opinion.

The case centered on a West Virginia law enacted in 2021 and an Idaho law passed in 2020, both of which prohibited male students from participating in female sporting events. Those state laws were challenged by males who wanted to compete in girls’ sporting events, declaring themselves to be “transgender women.”

The ruling impacts Oklahoma, which enacted a similar law in 2022 and is among 27 states with similar statutes today.

The majority opinion declared, “The question before the Court is: Under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, may schools maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females? In other words, may schools determine eligibility for women’s and girls’ sports based on biological sex? The answer is yes.”

The majority noted that the term “sex,” as used in the 1970s federal laws that provided protections for girls’ athletic events, “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,” Kavanaugh wrote.

The opinion also noted that federal Title IX regulations “allowed separate sports teams precisely because of the biological differences between the sexes—namely, the inherent physical differences between biological women and biological men,” and “plainly recognized the inherent physical differences between biological men and biological women—as well as the safety and competitive fairness concerns that would arise if males were allowed to compete in female sports.”

“With respect to safety, allowing biological males to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams can put women and girls at significant risk of injuries,” Kavanaugh wrote. “The safety risks are particularly severe in contact sports.

“And as to competitive fairness, allowing biological males to play on women’s and girls’ sports teams can put female athletes at a serious disadvantage,” he continued. “That is because sports are generally zero-sum. Allowing a biological male athlete to compete on a girls’ team necessarily displaces or disadvantages a female athlete—replacing her on the roster, knocking her out of the starting lineup, reducing her playing time, depriving her of a medal, and the like. That hard reality of sports cannot be ignored or swept under the rug.”

In a concurring opinion, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas wrote, “A man does not have a legal right to compete against women just because he believes that he is a woman.”

Thomas also stated, “Legislatures have many obvious rational bases to keep men who believe that they are women out of teams and private spaces reserved for women.”

In her dissent, which was joined by the other two members of the court’s liberal wing, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed that federal law did not prohibit the girls’ sports law, but suggested state bans on male participation in female sports may violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. She said those arguments should be further litigated in lower courts.

“This litigation implicates deeply sensitive, contentious, and evolving issues,” Sotomayor wrote. “These circumstances demand exercising judicial restraint, not rushing to answer conclusively difficult questions without sufficient evidentiary development.”

Gov. Kevin Stitt praised the court’s decision.

“The Supreme Court upheld a commonsense law,” Stitt wrote on X. “Because states like Oklahoma enacted the Save Women’s Sports Act, girls all across the country are protected in the locker room and get to compete on a level playing field.”

Legislative leaders also praised the ruling.

“The U.S. Supreme Court got it right,” said Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton, R-Tuttle. “Oklahoma already had measures in place to safeguard our female athletes, and the Court’s ruling validates our efforts. Teams designated for female sports should never be open to biological males. Doing so creates an unfair advantage, which we have seen play out in other states across the country. The lack of passing commonsense measures in other states to protect our youth has led to people leaving those places to come to states like Oklahoma. Female athletes train just as hard and are just as committed, but male athletes possess inherent physical advantages in muscle mass and body structure. The Court should be applauded for protecting fairness in sports.”

“This is a victory for common sense and the generations of women and girls who fought for equal opportunity in athletics,” said Oklahoma House Speaker Kyle Hilbert, R-Bristow. “Title IX was created to expand opportunities for women, not erase them. Oklahoma made it clear through Senate Bill 2 that women’s sports are for women, and today the Supreme Court affirmed that states do not have to stand by while those opportunities are undermined.

“Oklahoma has been an anchor on this policy, and today that leadership was validated,” Hilbert continued. “We will continue defending policies that protect women’s spaces, uphold biological reality and ensure that young women across our state are not forced to sacrifice fairness in the name of radical ideology.”

State Rep. Toni Hasenbeck, R-Elgin, the House author of the Save Women’s Sports Act, also applauded the U.S. Supreme Court decision.

“Today’s Supreme Court decision is a victory for the integrity of women’s sports. We must tell the truth about biology,” Hasenbeck said. “For decades, Title IX opened doors for generations of girls and women to compete, earn scholarships and succeed on a level playing field. Protecting those opportunities is common sense and should never be controversial.”

Freedom Oklahoma, a 2SLGBTQ+ advocacy organization, decried the ruling.

Cole McAfee, executive director of Freedom Oklahoma, said the court was “continuing to declare an increasingly larger group of people are allowed to be excluded, marginalized, and harassed, by their governments, because of a facet of who they are.”

Oklahoma’s Save Women’s Sports Act expressly designates that athletic teams sponsored by a public or private school must be based on biological sex and divided into three categories: males, females, or co-ed.

The law also states that any student deprived of an athletic opportunity or who suffers direct or indirect harm as a result of a violation of these categories has a cause of action for injunctive relief and damages against the school.

NOTE: This story has been updated since publication to include additional comments reacting to the court’s ruling.