SCOTUS appears to side with states to keep men out of women's sports

The Supreme Court heard arguments on Tuesday regarding the issue of trans-identified males playing in women’s sports. Justices appeared poised to side with the states and their laws protecting women's sports. The topic has been a heated issue is recent years, with opponents saying that allowing males into women’s sports is unfair to female athletes who have worked hard for their successes, only to be outperformed by a male with biological advantages. Even when those males do not walk away with trophies, they replace women in competition who were not able to compete because the male had taken their spot.

At the center of Tuesday’s oral arguments were two cases, West Virginia v BPJ, and Idaho’s Little v Hecox. Representing Idaho transgender student Lindsay Hecox, attorney Kathleen Hartnett argued that the law "draws a sex-based line by categorically excluding all students with the biological sex of male from women’s teams. Sex classifications like that are closely scrutinized under the equal protection clause to ensure they rest on evidence, not supposition."

She said that Idaho has said that the law would protect women’s sports from males who have biological advantages over females, later claiming that her client, college student Hecox, "mitigated" the advantage he would have over females "because she has suppressed her testosterone for over a year and taken estrogen." She said that because of this, Hecox has "no sex-based biological advantage as compared to birth females." 

During questioning, Justice Samuel Alito pressed Hartnett on the definition of "boy" and "girl." Alito asked, "do you agree that a school may have separate teams for a category of students classified as boys and a category of students classified as girls?" Hartnett replied, "yes, your honor."

"If it does that, then is it not necessary for there to be, for equal protection purposes, if that is challenged under the equal protection clause, an understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman," Alito asked, with Hartnett replying in the affirmative again. Alito continued, "And what is that definition for equal protection purposes? What does it mean to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?"

Hartnett replied, "I think that the underlying enactment, whatever it was, the policy, the law, the—would have to, we’d have to have an understanding of how the state or the government was just understanding that term to figure out whether or not someone was excluded. We do not have a definition for the court, and we don’t take issue with the—we’re not disputing the definition here. What we’re saying is that the way it applies to practice is to exclude birth sex males categorically from women’s teams, and that there’s a subset of those birth sex males where it doesn’t make sense to do so."

Alito questioned how the court could determine "whether there’s discrimination based on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for equal protection purposes," later asking if a biological male who has never taken puberty blockers, female hormones, or had sex change surgeries, but proclaims to be a woman, could be barred from the women’s team, with Hartnett replying, "yes."

Justice Brett Kavanaugh referred to Title IX and the growth of women in sports as "one of the great success in America over the last 50 years," and referenced concerns women’s sports advocates have in allowing males to compete against women, including that their participation would "undermine or reverse that amazing success and will create unfairness."

The question on the definition of sex came up again in the West Virginia case, which centers around transgender high school athlete Becky Pepper Jackson, with ACLU attorney Josh Block urging that the Supreme Court not make its decision "based on the definition of sex argument. We are not disputing in this case that West Virginia can have its definition of sex. Our argument is it’s using this definition to inflict discrimination and deny equal athletic opportunity."

He also told the justices, "I don’t think that it follows that Title IX created some national definition of sex that preempted states’ ability to say, you know, 'actually we are most concerned about discrimination that happens through gender roles.'"

Altio later asked, "Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. It’s a statutory term. It must mean something. You’re arguing that here there’s discrimination on the basis of sex, and how can we decide that question without knowing what sex means in Title IX? I mean, it could mean biological sex, it could mean gender identity, it could mean whatever a state wants to define it to me, but it has to mean something. How can we decide that without knowing what the statutory term means?" 

Block replied, "I think there are a whole range of sex based characteristics that can give rise to discrimination," giving the example of someone discriminating against a person "who acts in a feminine manner." He added, "I'm not saying that biological differences aren't part of sex, but I'm saying that sex also has broader connotations, and there's no reason to keep that out of the statute. And I'm certainly not saying that sex means gender identity. I just want to be very clear about that."

Outside the Supreme Court, dueling rallies took place, one in favor of banning males from women’s sports, and one against. The left-wing protestors supporting keeping males in women’s sports frequently played loud music in attempts to drown out the female athletes and other speakers who told the attendees about their experiences with the matter.

The crowd heard from athletes who have been affected by trans-identified males competing in women’s sports, including former University of Kentucky swimmer Kaitlynn Wheeler, who told the crowd in regards to the noise coming from the leftists assembled beside them, saying that they were on a mission of "silencing truth," adding, "that’s what we’re all here for, is to speak truth. But little do they know, that truth will never be silenced, so we’ll only speak louder. And we will not accept the reality that this is the country, this is the reality that our daughters will inherit."

The crowd also heard from Tish Hyman, an LA-based singer who went viral in late 2025 after calling out a Los Angeles gym that canceled her membership after she raised concerns about a male in the women’s locker room. Since then, Hyman has also confronted California state Senator-turned-congressional candidate Scott Wiener about his policies on transgenderism. Hyman told the crowd, "There is no 'trans.' There are men, there are women. Your existence is ridiculous."

Former ESPN host Sage Steele told the crowd, "when it comes to the facts, the truth, the science behind whether we are men and women, there is zero debate. You can try, you can try all you want, millions have, but funny how so many demand 'follow the science' for certain things, right, but not for the most obvious of them all." She added, "nothing changes the fact that God made men and women different, beautifully different."