OPINION:
Seventy-nine percent. That’s how many Americans say high school girls’ sports should be played only by females.
It’s not just a big group; it’s a supermajority. Women and men, every age group, every race. Both political parties.
That data point comes from a nationwide poll of more than 1,500 adults by the Institute for Governance and Civics at Florida State University. The poll has been released as the Supreme Court prepares to decide two cases about whether states may limit girls’ sports teams to biological females (West Virginia v. BPJ and Little v. Hecox).
An attorney at the court’s January hearing called the issue “hotly disputed.”
Our data tells a different story.
We asked people how much they agreed with this statement: “In high school sports, eligibility for girls’ and women’s teams should be based on their sex assigned at birth.” A large majority agreed. Overall, 54% “strongly agreed,” including 77% of women and 82% of men.
Only self-identified liberals fell below a majority, but even among them, 47% agreed.
Still, there are real divides inside the Democratic Party. Among liberals, men and women diverge on the issue: While 39% of liberal women agreed with sex-based rules, 54% of liberal men did. Minority Democrats are more skeptical of gender-identity-based eligibility than many political debates suggest: 75% of Black Democrats and 63% of Hispanic Democrats agreed that teams should be based on sex at birth.
The one group that was clearly opposed was liberals ages 18 to 29, with 52% disagreeing. That 18-to-29 group is also the most split overall, with a 71-point gap in agreement between young liberals and young conservatives.
Independents, by contrast, look much more like Republicans than Democrats on this question. Taken together, the division on the left suggests that opposition to a decision that limits girls’ sports to females would be narrower than many might assume.
That divide showed up in Washington this weekend. In a 49‑41 party‑line vote, Senate Democrats blocked an amendment to the SAVE America Act. It would have written into federal law President Trump’s order keeping biological males out of girls’ and women’s sports.
Many elected officials treat the matter as a partisan culture war litmus test, but ordinary Americans, including many Democrats and independents, are more comfortable with the simple idea that girls’ sports should be for biological girls.
We also asked a second question that focused on “fairness,” offering three options: “Fairness means allowing athletes to compete by gender identity”; “Fairness means protecting women’s and girls’ opportunities by basing participation on sex at birth”; and “Both principles are important and need to be balanced.”
Here, too, a clear pattern emerged: 61% of respondents said fairness means basing participation on sex at birth. Only 10% chose gender identity.
The word “fairness” changed the way some people answered, especially Democrats and liberals. Some 18% of Democrats and 20% of liberals said fairness prioritizes gender identity. By contrast, 35% of Democrats and 24% of liberals said fairness requires sex-based rules.
The most common answer among Democrats (42%) and liberals (49%) was that both principles should be balanced. Republicans looked very different. Eighty-four percent said fairness means participation based on sex at birth.
In short, Republicans tend to have a clear stance on fairness as it relates to this issue, while Democrats and liberals are torn.
What do these findings mean for the Supreme Court and its possible ruling?
The court does not chase public opinion, but it does sometimes pay attention to what Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the “climate of the era.” If the justices look at public sentiment, they will see that most Americans are comfortable with keeping high school girls’ sports for biological girls.
It also suggests that a ruling trying to define what “fairness” requires may be more controversial than one that sticks to the basic question of who can play on girls’ teams.
When we place people’s answers to both questions side by side, a simple pattern appears: Many Americans like the idea of fairness in theory (however they define it), but they still prefer sex-based rules in practice.
A decision focused on the straightforward question of eligibility is likely to draw broader support than one that tries to settle a deeper moral debate.
Put plainly, a ruling that limits girls’ sports to biological females is likely to be more popular than many commentators think. Even though high-profile voices often talk about this as a settled issue in favor of gender identity, everyday Americans still tend to support girls’ sports for girls.
Those views could change over time, but for now, the court could uphold sex-based rules for girls’ sports without facing major public backlash. Despite the noise, the current public has quietly reached a conclusion, and it favors preserving girls’ sports for biological girls.
• Ryan Owens is director of the Institute for Governance and Civics and a professor of political science at Florida State University.
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