B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education

In 2021, West Virginia passed House Bill 3293, commonly referred to as the “Save Women’s Sports” law. The law ensures female athletes do not have to compete against males in school sports. This protects the opportunity for women and girls in West Virginia to compete, win, and enjoy the benefits of their athletic success.

Lainey Armistead is a female athlete and a former women’s soccer player at West Virginia State University. While Lainey competed at WVSU, the ACLU and others filed a lawsuit challenging the women’s sports law and asking a federal district court to allow males in women’s sports.

Lainey grew up with multiple brothers who played soccer and a father who coached soccer, so she is very familiar with the fact that the physical differences between male and female athletes give males an advantage. That’s why she intervened in the lawsuit and defend West Virginia’s save women’s sports law.

No. As professor of exercise science at the University of Nebraska Dr. Gregory Brown has explained, studies conducted by numerous experts have found that there are major physiological differences between men and women that give men a substantial advantage in most sports.

These advantages are clearly demonstrated in the results of male and female athletic events. For example, female track athlete Femke Bol broke the world record for the indoor 400-meter event in February 2023 with a time of 49.26 seconds. Meanwhile, over 1,100 male track athletes ran faster indoor 400-meter times in just the first three months of 2023.

Dr. Brown’s report outlines many physiological differences between men and women. On average, men have greater muscle mass and strength than women. In addition, the average man has a larger lung capacity, can carry more oxygen in the bloodstream, and can circulate more blood per second than the average woman, leading to higher metabolic rates. These differences translate to athletic advantages including stronger throwing, hitting, and kicking; higher jumping; faster running and swimming speeds; and more for males.

Athletic organizations that allow male athletes to compete against females are perpetuating the myth that a man can be a woman. Biological reality matters, and our country’s laws and policies must reflect that truth. When we allow lawmakers to redefine basic words like “man” and “woman,” people get hurt – and women and girls bear the brunt of the consequences.

Women are trapped in prisons with dangerous male criminals. Parents are coerced into allowing their children to receive cross sex hormones and sterilizing surgeries that have lifelong irreversible consequences. Women’s shelters are threatened for not allowing males to sleep next to women who have been sexually abused. And colleges are pressured to force women to be assigned to dorm rooms with men. To help ensure women’s safety and dignity in athletics and in society, we must stand up for biological science and objective truth.