Attorney General Alan Wilson asks U.S. Supreme Court to limit girls’ sports teams to biological females

South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson joined 23 other states in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear an Arizona case to protect girls’ and women’s sports.

“Sports teams are divided by sex to begin with to give girls a level playing field so they’re not competing against boys,” Attorney General Wilson said. “Arizona’s law restricting girls’ sports teams to biological females is just common sense, and it protects girls from competing against bigger, stronger males who identify as females.”

Attorneys general from 24 states are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case on Arizona’s law after a federal appeals court ruled the law likely violates the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause.

In their friend-of-the-court brief to the Supreme Court, the attorneys general argue that their states also have laws or policies like Arizona’s that restrict girls’ sports teams to biological females.

“Basing the distinction on biology rather than gender identity makes sense because it is the differences in biology—not gender identity—that call for separate teams in the first place: Whatever their gender identity, biological males are, on average, stronger and faster than biological females. If those average physical differences did not matter, there would be no need to segregate sports teams at all,” they write in their brief.

They’re asking the Supreme Court to hear the case and reverse the lower court’s ruling, to make it clear that the Constitution does not prohibit states from saving women’s sports from unfair competition and providing meaningful athletic opportunities for girls and women.

Joining Attorney General Wilson are the attorneys general from Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.

You can read the brief here.