Supreme Court arguments exposed the absurdity of gender ideology

By Phil Lawler ( bio - articles - email ) | Jan 15, 2026

This week’s oral arguments before the Supreme Court, in cases involving state laws that ban boys from girls’ sports, may prove to be a decisive turning point in the surreal political struggle over gender ideology. The battle is not won, but the momentum has shifted.

Credit Justice Samuel Alito with the question that fully exposed the absurdity of the argument before the court. When a lawyer representing a “transgender” student declined to define what it means to be male or female, Alito asked: “How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex, without knowing what sex means?”

That question strikes directly at the heart of the case before the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs are challenging state laws that prohibit boys who identify as girls from competing in competitions that are restricted to girls. Their claim is that these laws discriminate on the basis of sex. But how is it possible to discriminate on the basis of sex, if we don’t know what sex is?

In one case, challenging a West Virginia law, the plaintiffs also charge that banning boys from girls’ teams is a violation of the famous Title IX of the Education Amendments, the landmark legislation that was enacted to give girls equal opportunities in all aspects of education, including intercollegiate and interscholastic sports. So the plaintiffs argue, against the clear intent of the law, that Title IX should be interpreted to allow boys to enjoy the benefits that the lawmakers thought they were protecting for girls. In the name of equality for women, boys would be allowed to shoulder girls off the girls’ athletic teams.

The Trump administration, arguing in favor of the restrictive state laws, takes the commonsensical position that athletic teams set up for girls should be restricted to girls— or as a Wall Street Journal report phrased it, schools should “limit participation in girls’ sports to athletes whose sex was recorded as female at birth.”

In other words, to girls. But for the past several years, in a spectacular flight from ordinary logic, learned jurists have been doing their utmost to ignore biological realities. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, during her Senate confirmation hearings, testified under oath that she did not know exactly what a “woman” is. The illogic of her thinking came out in this week’s hearings, when she appeared to concede that boys usually have an innate physical advantage over girls in athletic competition, but wondered whether some provision could be made for boys who identify as girls but are not physical imposing. “The person [sic] who wants to play has to demonstrate to you, to whatever degree of scientific certainty, that they [sic] don’t have a competitive advantage,” she suggested.

But of course that suggestion runs afoul of the realities of athletic competition. Athletic competition always “discriminates” in favor of people who athletically gifted, who train harder and practice more. The best athletes always have a “competitive advantage” over the also-rans. In practice Justice Jackson’s suggestion would allow unathletic boys to crowd out unathletic girls, thus thwarting the purpose of Title IX. It would also bar tall and muscular boys from the games, while allowing tall and athletic girls to compete—thus discriminating on the basis of sex.

And by the way, notice that the cases before the Supreme Court arise from complaints brought by biological males who want to compete against biological females. There are very few girls suing to compete against boys, and very few cases in which the girls would enjoy a competitive advantage. Nor are there girls clamoring to be allowed into the boys’ locker rooms. Although gender ideology traces its lineage back to feminism, it is girls who suffer from its effects.

The fundamental point—the fundamental point, not just in the Supreme Court hearing but in society at large—is that we all know the difference between boys and girls, men and women. Our professed ignorance about sex is a pretense, and pretense is not a sound basis for law.

The Supreme Court appears likely to uphold the state laws protecting girls’ sports. But the power of gender ideology remains formidable, as evidenced by the coverage of the court’s arguments. In the report mentioned above, the Wall Street Journal—whose editorial perspective is not ordinarily associated with radical ideas, but finely attuned to the prevailing standards of the corporate world—consistently referred to a “transgender” male plaintiff as “she.”