In September 2023, Parents Defending Education (PDE) filed an amicus (“friend of the court”) brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Doe v. Horne, a challenge to Arizona’s policy keeping girls’ sports teams for female athletes. PDE asked the court to reverse the lower court’s ruling against the policy.
The brief argues:
- Title IX is built on comparing the two sexes. Congress passed Title IX so female students could have the same benefits and opportunities as male students. The law compares what “one sex” receives with what “the other sex” receives, which is impossible without a clear definition of sex.
- The challengers rely on the wrong cases. They point to Bostock v. Clayton County, but that case interpreted a different law, an employment law with a different structure and purpose, and the Supreme Court said its reasoning did not control Title IX. Other cases they cite, like Grimm v. Gloucester County School Board, don’t apply here.
- “Sex” means biological sex. Title IX’s text, structure, history, and purpose all show that “sex” means the biological differences between males and females, and the law protects sports separated on that basis. As the Eleventh Circuit put it, “[t]here simply is no alternative definition of ‘sex’ for transgender persons” under Title IX.
Because Arizona’s policy gives equal opportunities to both sexes, it is required by Title IX.
Read the full brief below:
