COMMENTARY: The court will rule whether states have the authority to safeguard female athletes or whether such protections must be subject to individualized assessments and constitutional protections.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument Jan. 13 in two closely watched cases that will determine whether states can preserve women’s and girls’ sports teams.
The consolidated hearings in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. represent the Court’s most direct engagement yet with the questions related to gender ideology and athletes in educational settings.
Lindsay Hecox, now 24, challenged Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act after being barred from trying out for Boise State University’s women’s track and cross-country teams. B.P.J., a 15-year-old West Virginia high-school male student who has identified as female since third grade and takes medication to prevent male puberty, sought to compete on girls’ teams under West Virginia’s Save Women’s Sports Act.
Both challengers contend their state laws violate Title IX — the federal law prohibiting sex discrimination in federally funded educational programs — and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Lower courts offered different analyses in handing wins to the challengers: The 9th Circuit ruled against Idaho, finding unconstitutional discrimination based on “transgender status,” while the 4th Circuit reversed a district court and held West Virginia’s law violated Title IX.
This is the third time that gender ideology has been at play before the high court. In Bostock v. Clayton County (2020), Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority that Title VII’s prohibition on employment discrimination “because of sex” covers allegations of discrimination based on transgender identity. And in United States v. Skrmetti (2025), Chief Justice John Roberts upheld Tennessee’s ban on certain medical treatments for transgender minors, applying only rational basis review and declining to rule whether transgender people constitute a “suspect class” deserving heightened constitutional protection.
Idaho and West Virginia are correct that male athletes possess “numerous recognized physical and physiological advantages over females that begin before puberty and persist despite reduced circulating testosterone.” These states’ legislatures made reasonable decisions to preserve fairness and safety in women’s sports that courts should not question lightly.
To strip authentic competition in the name of identity politics is a grave injustice to the athletes — both male and female. Female athletes who have trained for years deserve to compete on a level playing field. Male athletes who identify as female deserve honesty about biological reality rather than false assurances that hormone treatments erase every meaningful physical difference.
Lawyers for the students contend the laws should face heightened judicial scrutiny because they discriminate based on transgender identity. In support of this, Hecox claims there is evidence of a history of legal discrimination against transgender people and argues that he has been unable to meaningfully vindicate his rights through the political process. He also notes that many transgender women and girls have testosterone levels typical of women and therefore lack the athletic advantages the states cite.
B.P.J. emphasizes that having never experienced male puberty and having received hormone treatments producing female physiological characteristics, he lacks any athletic advantage over girls.
Tuesday’s marathon oral argument for both cases lasted more than three hours. The justices’ questions revealed the complex legal and practical dimensions of the challengers’ claims.
Perhaps the argument is best summed up by a statement made by Chief Justice John Roberts to counsel representing Hecox: “I’m just not quite sure I’m grasping why your position isn’t really an effort to apply” a higher level of judicial scrutiny “to a distinction we haven’t applied it to.”
All three left-leaning justices seem to favor the laws’ challengers. Most vocal was Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who questioned whether the Supreme Court could even hear the Idaho case, noting that Hecox no longer intends to play collegiate sports and has sought dismissal. This issue of mootness, however, did not appear to gain much traction with her colleagues.
Justice Samuel Alito focused on definitional questions, pressing attorneys on how both states define terms like “boy,” “girl,” “man” and “woman” when determining whether discrimination occurred and Chief Justice Roberts similarly focused on having an operational definition of “sex” for purposes of Title IX.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett raised a pointed question about the structure of the Idaho law, asking Hecox’s attorney how she could argue there’s discrimination based on “transgender status” when only “transgender girls” are affected by the ban, while anyone, including “transgender boys,” can play on boys’ sports teams.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who has coached his daughters, also added a dose of reality by raising the issue of fairness.
“For the individual girl who does not make the team or doesn’t get on the stand for the medal, or doesn’t make all-league, there’s a harm there,” said Kavanaugh. “One of the great successes in America over the last 50 years has been the growth of women and girls’ sports. And it’s inspiring.”
Kavanaugh also asked whether the roughly two dozen states that allow transgender athletes to compete were violating the constitutional rights of biological girls and women by allowing transgender athletes to compete.
Idaho’s solicitor general said Idaho wasn’t asking the Supreme Court to rule on that question, though the Alliance Defending Freedom is actively litigating that issue in other states. Kavanaugh’s observations were seconded by West Virginia Solicitor General Michael Williams, who argued that legal challenges to laws like West Virginia’s were like “a backdoor attack on Title IX.”
The court’s ruling will determine whether states have broad authority to safeguard female athletes, or whether such protections must be subject to individualized assessments and constitutional protections. A decision grounded in rational basis review would give states wide latitude to recognize biological reality in athletics and possibly in other crucial spaces such as bathrooms and locker rooms — an outcome that would protect the rights and safety of women and girls. Such a ruling would affirm what mothers, coaches and athletes have long known: that fairness in women’s sports requires acknowledging the embodied reality of sexual difference.
For Catholics watching these cases, the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection and Title IX as well as its reasoning about sex, biology and gender identity will inevitably influence broader cultural and legal debates. Fortunately, the Catholic Church has a clear understanding of the human person as created male and female — an anthropology rooted in truth rather than ideology. This foundation provides both clarity about biological reality and compassion for all persons struggling with questions of identity, without sacrificing the rights of female athletes in the process.