Special Edition: Wednesday, July 1, 2026

The Briefing with Albert Mohler - R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

The Supreme Court upheld state laws in West Virginia and Idaho banning biological males from competing on girls' and women's sports teams, citing biological sex and Title IX. The decision reflects broad public support an

Key takeaways

• Six-3 majority affirms states' right to restrict male athletes on girls' teams

Transcript preview

It's Wednesday, July 1st, 2026. I'm Albert Moeller, and this is a special edition of the briefing, a daily analysis of news and events from a Christian worldview. This special edition is made necessary by the fact that on the very first day of July, we have to talk about big decisions handed down by the Supreme Court on the last day of June. Now, there were four cases, three big groupings of issues. One of them had to do this, with campaign financing I'm not going to give that much attention we're going to get primary attention to two big issues I think the most important of them were two cases having to do with the rights of states to limit biological males in terms of competing on girls teams it was both girls and women's teams and so we are looking at a big issue we're also looking at yet another transgender case of course there's going to be a lot for us to consider here but the big fact the bottom line is that by a three vote. A majority of the Supreme Court upheld the right of two states, the states of West Virginia and Idaho, to adopt legislation saying that biological males cannot play on girls or women's teams. And in particular, these two cases had to do with what began as girls teams. And it still is that way in West Virginia as a matter of fact, the biological male who in West Virginia has been claiming transgender female identity and has been competing in girls competitions. one yet another shot put title. And so this issue could not be more relevant by the way that flies in the face of so many people who say this just doesn't happen. Well not only does it happen, it happened in this particular case with this particular plaintiff in the state of West Virginia in recent days. Okay here's the big bottom line in the take-home in these two cases, one from Idaho, one from West Virginia having to do with biological males wanting to compete on girls or women's teams. The Supreme Court by a six-3 majority again, again said that states have the right to impose this limitation. We're talking about right now about 27 of the states that have adopted similar legislation or policy and that turns out to be really important and by the way if you look at a map of the United States just think of red and blue states that's pretty much the overlay here. You look at the coasts well when you get to the northeast coast and you get to the west coast we're talking about very liberal states and you're also looking at some of the great late states also heavily democratic leaning in that way the vast map of the United States and the big center is very much made up of states again I give you the number 27 have adopted similar legislation but that means that almost half the states have not that's very problematic it is telling that Kristen Wagner who is the head of the alliance defending freedom made very clear that the next step in the legal strategy to recover sanity here is going to be arguing that the states that do not have such policies are violating the rights of girls and women So there's some really big things that came out of this. You're not surprised by the six three number because there are six justices appointed by conservative presidents, three by President Donald Trump in his first term alone. And then there are three appointed by Democratic presidents. They tend to be, by no surprise, the three more liberal justices on the court. It is interesting, however, that on this transgender issue in both cases, what you had was even the three liberal justices saying that having a rule that said that males that males by males by males by males by males biological males cannot play on female teams does not violate the Title IX legislation that funds so much of higher education. That's actually a very big thing and it's one of the reasons why so many of the trans activists and LGBTQ activists are very upset not only with the result of this case which by the way is a repeated pattern now coming before the Supreme Court. This is the sixth loss for the transgender argument in 13 months before the Supreme Court of the United States. We're talking about what is clearly now now now. a cultural trend because it's not just the fact that the Supreme Court has handed down this series of decisions over the past 13 months, six in a row, it is also because there is broad public consensus on these issues and that is exactly what the LGBTQ activist community is up against and they are infuriated by this. You're going to see that in some of the comments made in the aftermath of the court announcing this decision. It is very interesting that when you look at this you recognize that the Supreme Court justices are actually here in this case, both in terms of the majority opinion and in a dissenting opinion joined by other liberal justices, it's really clear that you're talking about some things here that you just could not imagine most Supreme Court justices would ever have to talk about. That's because we are talking about very controversial issues having to do with, for example, whether or not a male body that goes through male puberty is one category and a male body that goes through. what one of the justices actually called female puberty, which of course is not true. There may be female hormones or something like that, but there's no way that a biological male is going through female puberty. That's just a fact. But it does show you the extent to which the claims made by the transgender activists are received unevenly in our society. So when you look at the fact the vast majority of Americans are real clear about the fact that a biological male shouldn't be playing on girls teams, you recognize you do have a significant portion of Americans who not only say they believe the opposite but seem to actually more or less put their money where their mouth is in other words they're willing to put their legal reputations their institutions their teams on the line so it is very interesting to look at this and recognize that I go back to the language you have people here talking about whether or not the justice is debating in the majority versus the minority opinion vice versa you have arguments over for example how much of a physical advantage biological males have. And then it goes into the details, certainly in terms of the dissent about whether or not you have different levels of male hormonal activity with different levels of pewbital development that would come with different levels of male advantage. You know, one of the big issues that comes up in this case is the fact that