North Carolina laws backed by U.S. Supreme Court decision

The most recent state law defines men and women; North Carolina was the 18th to do so. Biological sex, the law says, is based on reproductive potential or capacity. The 2023 statute prohibits public middle and high schools, colleges and universities from allowing males to participate on female sports teams.

"We won but we’re not done,” said Jennifer Sey in a public statement emailed to The Center Square. “We've halted the retreat. Now we advance. Twenty-seven states have codified Title IX protections – but girls in the other 23 are still forced to compete against boys, politicians are still choosing ideology over women, and the culture that silences female athletes remains. We aren't done until all girls have fair competition."

Sey, former board room titan at Levi’s and founder of XX-XY Athletics, is a 1986 national champion gymnast among the leaders speaking out to protect women’s spaces.

The Supreme Court ruled on cases known as West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox. The finding said states may enforce laws protecting a category for females in school athletics under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause.

In a concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in part, "Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are. Sex is an immutable ‘biological’ characteristic; it is binary; and ‘man’ and ‘woman,’ ‘boy’ and ‘girl,’ are the terms that correspond to adults and children of each sex.

“To use language to obscure reality to show ‘indifference regarding the truth’ – is to lie to the public and cease to treat our fellow citizens ‘as equal[s].’"

His voice backed the past interviews with The Center Square from Sey and Carrie Lukas, president of Independent Women’s Forum, vice president of Independent Women’s Voice and member of Independent Women’s Network.

The leading voice from North Carolina has been Payton McNabb, the 2023 graduate of Hiwassee Dam High in Murphy. Her three-sport career ended Sept. 1, 2022, when a volleyball was spiked into her head by an opposing player that was a boy saying he identified as a girl.

North Carolina High School Athletic Association rules at the time, as championed by former Commissioner Que Tucker, permitted granting approval for boys to play in girls sports.

“Today is a full circle moment,” McNabb said in a public statement emailed to The Center Square. “I’m deeply grateful and overwhelmed with joy that truth and fairness were affirmed. This ruling recognizes what so many of us have been saying all along: that protecting women’s and girls’ sports is not exclusion, it’s justice. Biology isn’t bigotry, and today that truth was finally given weight!”

From the majority opinion, Justice Brett Kavanaugh wrote in part, “We are acutely aware of the difficulties sometimes faced by boys who identify as girls (and by girls who identify as boys) in middle school, high school, and beyond…. But in conducting the equal protection inquiry, we must also account for the effects on girls who are forced to compete against biological males in sports.”