The Supreme Court agreed on July 3 to consider whether states can ban male athletes who don’t identify with their sex from competing on school sports teams intended for females.
The decisions to grant the petitions for certiorari, or review, in two separate cases were published on a list of orders. No justices dissented. The court did not explain the decisions.
In the cases, Idaho and West Virginia argue that their respective laws are consistent with the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment’s equal protection clause says no state “shall … deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” They also say their laws do not violate Title IX, a federal civil rights law that forbids sex-based discrimination at any school that receives federal funding.
At the moment, 27 states have bans in place preventing males who identify as transgender from participating in girls’ and women’s sports, according to a report by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.
The first case, Little v. Hecox, is about Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, “which ensures that women and girls do not have to compete against men and boys no matter how those men and boys identify,” according to the petition filed in the case.
Soon after the act passed the state Legislature, respondent Lindsay Hecox sued, alleging the state statute violates the equal protection clause and Title IX. Hecox, a male who identifies as female, wanted to compete as part of the Boise State University women’s teams for track and cross-country.
A federal district court issued a preliminary injunction blocking the act so Hecox could try out for the teams. The court ruled that the act discriminates against transgender-identifying athletes. “The physiological differences” between females and males “do not overcome the inescapable conclusion that the Act discriminates on the basis of transgender status,” according to the petition.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the injunction, holding that laws making sex-based distinctions in schools serve as “proxy discrimination” against transgender-identifying athletes.
Hecox had urged the Supreme Court not to accept Idaho’s appeal.
The Ninth Circuit’s ruling is “correct on the merits and faithfully follows this Court’s precedent,” Hecox’s brief said.
The second case, West Virginia v. B.P.J., is about a similar law in West Virginia. State lawmakers voted to keep the sexes separate in sports because of the “inherent physical differences between biological males and biological females,” according to the petition filed in the case.
The state’s Save Women’s Sports Act, enacted in 2021, stipulates that females’ teams based on “competitive skill” or involving “a contact sport” must not be open to males.
The respondent, identified in court papers as B.P.J., a young male who identifies as female, sued to block the state law, arguing that the law’s “biology-based distinction” runs afoul of Title IX and the equal protection clause. A federal district court entered an injunction temporarily blocking the law. B.P.J. then participated in girls’ cross-country and track-and-field teams, regularly defeating female athletes, the petition said.
After the district court engaged in discovery, an evidence-gathering process, over seven months, the court changed its mind and ruled the law was constitutional. The court dissolved the injunction and found there was “no genuine dispute that biological males have physiological advantages over biological females,” the petition said.
The Fourth Circuit reinstated the injunction. In April 2023, the Supreme Court declined to lift the injunction. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito dissented.
Although the Supreme Court didn’t rule on the merits of the case, this was apparently the first time the court had ruled in a case involving restrictions on the participation of transgender-identifying athletes in collegiate sports.
B.P.J. filed a brief asking the Supreme Court to reject the state’s petition. The Fourth Circuit’s ruling on both Title IX and the equal protection clause was “correct on the merits,” the brief stated.
The Alliance Defending Freedom, which is part of Idaho’s legal team, hailed the high court’s decision to accept the cases.
“Women and girls deserve to compete on a level playing field,” the public interest law firm’s CEO, president, and chief counsel, Kristen Waggoner, said in a statement.
“But activists continue their quest to erase differences between men and women by forcing schools to allow men to compete in women’s sports,” she said.
Shiwali Patel, senior director of safe and inclusive schools at the National Women’s Law Center, said the lower courts “were right to block the harmful and blatantly discriminatory state laws at issue.”
“Equal protection and access to education mean that all students should be able to play sports and reap the well-documented socioemotional and educational benefits of playing,” Patel told The Epoch Times.
The two cases are expected to be argued separately.
The Supreme Court is expected to hold oral arguments for the cases in its new term that begins in October.
The Supreme Court’s decision to hear the cases came after its landmark June 18 decision in United States v. Skrmetti.
In the case, the court upheld Tennessee’s ban on gender procedures for children, such as the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones on minors. The state law forbids all medical treatments intended to allow “a minor to identify with, or live as, a purported identity inconsistent with the minor’s sex” or to treat “purported discomfort or distress from a [disagreement] between the minor’s sex and asserted identity.”
Sam Dorman contributed to this report.
This article by Matthew Vadum appeared July 3, 2025, in The Epoch Times.