On November 17, 2025, the National Women’s Law Center, represented by Democracy Forward and Professor Deborah Brake, filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in B.P.J. v. West Virginia and Little v. Hecox. These cases challenge state laws from West Virginia and Idaho that categorically ban transgender girls and women from playing on girls’ and women’s school sports teams. Such sports bans also harm all women and girls, including cisgender women and girls, by increasing gender policing, inappropriate scrutiny of students’ bodies, and harassment.
The courageous students who brought these lawsuits claim the laws violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution; the B.P.J. case also argues that the West Virginia sports ban law violates Title IX, a federal law that prohibits sex discrimination in education programs and activities. Federal courts have blocked enforcement of these bans in both lawsuits. These cases may have nationwide implications, as 26 other states have joined West Virginia and Idaho in banning transgender students from participating in school sports since 2020.
Our amicus brief explains that Title IX was always intended to remedy discrimination rooted in pernicious sex stereotyping—particularly the notion that cisgender girls and women are athletically inferior to cisgender boys and men. We explain how sports bans, like the ones being challenged, reinforce the same stereotypes that women and girls have been fighting against for decades because they impede progress towards gender equity in athletics. These stereotypes neither create more opportunities for girls and women nor address real barriers in sports; rather, they subject girls and women to invasive scrutiny based on others’ perceptions of femininity. These are the exact harms that Congress drafted Title IX to remedy. For more on the case, please read our blog and amicus brief.