The topic of sex and gender in school sports continues to remain controversial. Next week, it will be the focal point of the U.S. Supreme Court when it takes up similar cases from West Virginia and Idaho on laws barring transgender women and girls from participating on school sports teams.

West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey is preparing for his team of lawyers to make their argument in front of the top court, a case defending the state's Save Women's Sports Act, which prohibits those who were assigned male at birth from playing on competitive female sports teams.

"West Virginia is ready for this argument, and we expect it to be a 9-0 decision," McCuskey said. "Our argument here is that, very simply, biological males are bigger, faster, and stronger than girls, and therefore, it creates an unfair and an unsafe playing space for girls."

This comes after West Virginia appealed a lower-court ruling that found its ban violates the rights of an 11-year-old identified as BPJ, who had been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade. She sued the state as a middle schooler because she wanted to compete on cross country and track teams.

"The law treats biological males and biological females identically, which is a very massive distinction between what the BPJ and the ACLU are describing," McCuskey said.

Kennedy Botts with Sisters PGH, a nonprofit serving the Black transgender community, is pushing back on that argument. 

"I feel like at best, the framing of the argument is disingenuous, and at worst, it's malicious. Trans people want to play sports just like everybody else," Botts said.

She said some research shows there are few differences more than four years after someone has medically transitioned.

"After a certain point, the biological differences between transgender men and cis men was negligible, and that the same was true for trans women and cis women," Botts said.

She added that there is a small percentage of transgender people who take part in competing sports, so she said there is a very small impact.

At the same time, Botts argued that everyone is built differently. For example, she said when comparing two assigned to the same sex at birth, one may have broad shoulders and another may not, giving a greater advantage for, say, a swimmer.

"People's genes are what they are," Botts said. "I think that the measures that we're currently trying to divide it along are not fair."

A decision on a high-profile case like this likely won't come until late June or early July, before the court takes its summer recess.