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Argued and decided alongside Little v. Hecox, West Virginia v. B.P.J. asked whether Title IX permits a state to define girls' school sports teams by sex assigned at birth. On June 30, 2026 the Supreme Court said it does.
West Virginia v. B.P.J. reached the Supreme Court from the opposite coast and the opposite result from its companion. The Ninth Circuit had blocked Idaho's law. The Fourth Circuit had ruled against West Virginia's. On June 30, 2026 the Supreme Court reversed both in one 6-3 opinion by Justice Kavanaugh.
If Little v. Hecox is the equal protection case, B.P.J. is the Title IX case. Same day, same opinion, different statute doing the work.
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Caption | West Virginia v. B.P.J. |
| Court | Supreme Court of the United States |
| Docket | 24-43 (argued with 24-38, Little v. Hecox) |
| Certiorari granted | July 3, 2025 |
| Argued | January 13, 2026 |
| Decided | June 30, 2026 |
| Vote | 6-3 |
| Below | Fourth Circuit |
| Statute | West Virginia's Save Women's Sports Act; Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 |
Note on the record: an earlier version of this post listed the docket as 23-1078. The number the Supreme Court decided under is 24-43. Verify any docket citation against supremecourt.gov before relying on it.
West Virginia enacted the Save Women's Sports Act in 2021. It requires that athletic teams at public secondary schools and state colleges be designated by sex, and limits girls' and women's teams to students of the female sex.
B.P.J. is a transgender girl who wanted to run middle school cross country and track. She sued under the Equal Protection Clause and Title IX. The Fourth Circuit ruled in her favor, and West Virginia petitioned for certiorari.
The Supreme Court granted review on July 3, 2025 and set the case for argument with Idaho's on January 13, 2026.
Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in federally funded education programs. Since the 1970s, its implementing regulations have permitted separate teams for each sex where selection is based on competitive skill or the activity is a contact sport.
The state's argument is that the regulation answers the question. If Title IX permits sex-separated teams, the statute must permit a school to determine who is on which team, and the ordinary meaning of sex in a 1972 statute is sex assigned at birth.
B.P.J.'s argument is that excluding one student from the team matching her gender identity is discrimination on the basis of sex under the reasoning of Bostock v. Clayton County, which held that discrimination because a person is transgender is necessarily discrimination because of sex. The Fourth Circuit accepted a version of that reasoning.
The majority held that Title IX allows schools to provide separate women's and men's teams defined by biological sex, and that the state laws do not violate equal protection. The Constitution Center's preview lays out both sides of the argument as they were presented.
Justices Sotomayor, Kagan, and Jackson dissented. The exact division of the separate writings should be read from the slip opinion rather than from summaries.
For school athletic departments in states with these statutes, the immediate effect is that eligibility rules keyed to sex assigned at birth are no longer vulnerable to the federal claims litigated here.
For everyone else, the effect is narrower than the coverage suggests. Bostock is untouched in the employment context. Claims under state constitutions and state civil rights laws are unaffected by a ruling about the federal Constitution and a federal statute. Rules set by private athletic associations rather than by statute were not before the Court.
The Fourth Circuit will enter judgment consistent with the ruling on remand.
Expect the litigation to migrate. When a federal theory closes, plaintiffs move to state courts and state statutes, and defendants move to consolidate. Watch for new filings in states with their own equal protection clauses, and for disputes over eligibility rules written by athletic associations rather than legislatures.
Also watch the administrative side. Title IX enforcement runs through the Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights as well as through courts, and agency guidance can move faster than litigation.
The Supreme Court's merits record is free on supremecourt.gov. The follow-on litigation lands in federal district courts and shows up on PACER first.
Search current filings here: transgender athlete eligibility litigation. Set case alerts if you want new filings pushed to you.
Both sides in this case argued from Bostock v. Clayton County, and the disagreement about it is worth stating clearly.
Bostock held that firing someone for being gay or transgender is discrimination because of sex under Title VII, because you cannot describe the decision without reference to the employee's sex. The opinion was explicit that it addressed Title VII employment discrimination and did not resolve questions under other statutes, including Title IX, or about sex-separated facilities.
Plaintiffs read the logic as portable: if the reasoning holds for Title VII, it holds for the parallel language in Title IX. States read the express limitation as controlling, and argued that Title IX is different because it authorizes sex separation on its face, which Title VII does not.
The majority sided with the states on that question in the athletics context. How far that reasoning travels to other Title IX contexts is the next round of litigation, not something this opinion settles.
The slip opinion is the only authoritative source for the holding and for the alignment of the separate writings. The briefing, including the amicus filings from athletic associations and from medical organizations, is on supremecourt.gov and is free.
The companion case and the equal protection analysis are covered in Little v. Hecox. For another 2026 decision where the Court replaced a long-standing framework rather than applying it, read Trump v. Slaughter. And for a case about federal authority over a state's own regulatory choices, see United States v. California Air Resources Board.