“Therefore, since the existence of separate women’s sports programs is justified by biological differences between women and men, there are exceedingly persuasive reasons to determine eligibility for such programs using biological criteria rather than a person’s sense of gender.”
FROM BRIEF AMICI CURIAE OF REP. BARBARA EHARDT OF IDAHO, 206 OTHER FEMALE STATE LEGISLATORS, AND 38 FAMILY POLICY ORGANIZATIONS IN SUPPORT OF PETITIONERS
Alaska Family Council was honored to join 38 other family policy councils and 206 female state legislators from across the country, including Alaska House Representatives Jamie Allard, Julie Coulombe, Elexie Moore, Cathy Tilton, Jubilee Underwood, Sarah Vance and Alaska Senator Shelly Hughes in an amicus brief to the United States Supreme Court (BRADLEY LITTLE, GOVERNOR OF IDAHO, ET AL.) v. (LINDSAY HECOX, ET AL.) to protect women’s sports.
AFC has proudly been at the tip of the spear on this issue for many years here in Alaska (see HERE, HERE and HERE) and we are encouraged and confident the highest court in the land will once and for all clarify that biology matters and girls and women’s sports are worth protecting.
SUMMARY OF ARGUMENT (Click HERE for the full brief)
“One of our society’s greatest recent triumphs is the cultural and legal consensus in favor of women’s sports. For the most part, the long struggle for women’s rights has been one for equality under the law: to ensure that all Americans can participate in all areas of public life, without regard to their sex. Women’s sports have been a special case. In this limited area, our nationwide consensus has been that equal opportunity for women requires providing separate facilities and programs for them.
This has been a resounding success, opening countless life-changing opportunities to women who would never have experienced them otherwise. Many of the state legislators who are amicae here experienced this firsthand. They have been able to play in, coach, promote, and offer to their daughters sporting opportunities that had never existed for previous generations of women.
But this legal and cultural consensus in favor of women’s sports has reached what is likely the most significant crossroads of its existence. Since its inception, that consensus has been predicated on biology. The need for women’s sports arises from biological differences between women and men—and, consequently, who may participate in women’s sports has always been determined by the biological characteristics that make a person female. But that axiom of women’s sports is now being challenged.
In recent decades, there has been growing public awareness of a separate concept of “gender identity:” a person’s interior sense of being a woman or man (or neither), which may or may not correspond with the person’s biological sex characteristics. This has had major implications for the few areas, such as athletics, where separate women’s programs are still recognized as necessary and desirable. Increasingly, the argument is being made that eligibility for such events should be determined not by the biological characteristics that make a person female—as has been the case until now—but instead by a person’s interior sense of being a woman.
There are powerful justifications for retaining the longstanding biological criteria. The near-universal recognition of the importance of women’s sports is predicated on the just-as-widespread recognition that, in almost every sport and at almost every level of competition, there are major differences between the average speed and strength of female and male athletes. Those are biological differences—they are physical characteristics that are strongly correlated with the biological features that make a person female or male. By contrast, the very premise of “gender identity” is that one’s internal sense of being a woman or man does not have any necessary correspondence to one’s biological characteristics. Therefore, since the existence of separate women’s sports programs is justified by biological differences between women and men, there are exceedingly persuasive reasons to determine eligibility for such programs using biological criteria rather than a person’s sense of gender.
Based on this or very similar reasoning, most States have enacted statutes affirming that participation in women’s sports depends on biology. The amici here are legislators and policy organizations that have championed these laws. Some courts—including the Ninth Circuit here—have held that the federal Constitution or federal statutes prohibit this, and instead mandate a gender-identity criterion for participation in women’s sports. If this fundamental change is allowed to occur, it is likely to have effects on women’s sports—and on the nationwide consensus in favor of them—that are at best deeply uncertain, and at worst will fundamentally alter women’s sports until they are unrecognizable. The Court should reverse the judgment below.”