If you asked 50 female executives in corporate America what led to their success in business, you’re likely to get a wide variety of answers.
But one theme will emerge more prominently than most. Most women who now occupy a top C-suite position—and many of their high-performing female peers up and down the org chart—played and even excelled at sports throughout their teenage years, including at the collegiate level.
It’s easy to see why. The same confident leadership and decision-making skills that make for a successful career are often forged in the fires of high-competition athletics. That’s proven out time and again in multiple studies that date back to the late 1990s, including research from Ernst & Young and ESPN showing that 94 percent of women executives played competitive sports.
Not surprisingly, most of these women say their experience on the playing field accelerated their careers. And no doubt, the same can be said of any woman who carries the life lessons she gained through competition into education, medicine, law, or homemaking.
That’s one reason that two recently argued cases at the U.S. Supreme Court deserve our attention. In Little v. Hecox and State of West Virginia v. B.P.J., the justices considered state laws protecting athletic opportunities for women and girls. Opposite the attorneys general of Idaho and West Virginia, lawyers at the ACLU called for the elimination of women’s sports as a meaningful category.
As the attorneys general argued, women’s sports are important in part because they create a physical arena to learn lifelong leadership lessons. That allows women to work with and lead teams—that include men—well. But allowing males who claim a female identity to intrude into women’s sports robs young women of those valuable leadership lessons while exposing them to dangerous, unsafe, and unfair conditions on the field of play, and opens the door to males entering their locker rooms and other private spaces.
In a friend-of-the-court brief supporting the states’ protection of women’s sports, I joined a group of 24 current and former business leaders to highlight for the High Court that even one unfair competitor can distort hundreds of records for hundreds of women. That replaces the thrill of victory and well-earned self-confidence with frustration and disappointment and sends the clear message that a young woman’s success can be subverted by a male as long as he identifies as the opposite sex.
For example, at one high school meet in 2025, BPJ—the male athlete the ACLU represents in its challenge to the West Virginia law—displaced 18 girls in 33 events, denying girls at least three medals. Across his career, he displaced more than 400 girls 1,100 times.
Of course, the same is true at a much broader level. As reported by National Review, one UN study found that “over 600 female athletes in more than 400 women’s division events across 29 different sports were defeated by transgender-identifying men. Male athletes have taken over 890 medals from female athletes.”
That’s not only deeply unfair; it’s also counterproductive. Consider the title of the Ernst & Young and ESPN poll cited earlier: “How can winning on the playing field prepare you for success in the boardroom?” With rare exceptions, athletes train hard so they can have a shot at winning, not just participating. That same competitive edge is what it takes to excel in business—not simply to participate in a free market, but to be the best at what you do.
Why should a young woman have to compete in a women’s weight-lifting competition against a man? Why did Riley Gaines have to swim against a man to compete for a collegiate title? Why must a high school girl have to compete against a boy who has been lied to about his gender?
Ultimately, these cases and the issue itself go far beyond women’s sports. And the issue far exceeds the question of whether every woman has the opportunity to succeed in corporate America. These crucial questions, along with related considerations such as safety and privacy for women and girls, all hang on the far more basic inquiry of what we do with biological reality and truth itself.
Biological reality is on trial at the Supreme Court, and it’s why every American should be rooting for the justices to stand by truth—and the law—and protect women’s sports.
Margaret Iuculano serves as president of Christian Employers Alliance. Ms. Iuculano joined an amicus brief in support of Idaho and West Virginia in a consolidated case at the U.S. Supreme Court.