Justice Department lawyer Hashim Mooppan was grilled by Justice Sonia Sotomayor about the percentage of people that are transgender athletes aiming to participate in girls' and women's sports.
"What's percentage enough?" Sotomayor asked Mooppan, noting that there are nearly 3 million trans-identifying people in the United States. "That's an awfully big figure," she added, saying "numbers don't talk about the human beings."
"If the distinction between intermediate scrutiny and strict scrutiny is the difference between a perfect fit and a reasonable fit, 1% surely has to be on the side that's reasonable," Mooppan responded.
Mooppan then reference "Michael M.'s" case against the Superior Court in 1981, when the law stated that boys could be punished for having sex with girls under 18, but not vice versa, because girls can get pregnant.
"But if you don't want to just take the 1% on its own face, if you want to focus on majority opinions or opinions for the court, Michael M. rejected a challenge even though that law wouldn't, for infertile couples, infertile either infertile rapists or infertile victims, the justification didn't apply...
"There are certainly more infertile people than there are trans identifying individuals who take these drugs and eliminate all their physical advantages. So if we just focus on holdings of this court, we know that this percentage is too small."
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito pressed Kathleen Hartnett, the attorney for the plaintiff in Little v. Hecox, during Tuesday’s oral arguments, questioning how Idaho state law defines “boy,” “girl,” “man,” and “woman” as part of determining whether discrimination occurred.
“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 in 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, according to the state's own interest,” Hartnett responded.
But Alito quipped that the Court could not rule on discrimination without clear definitions.
“How can a court determine whether there's discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for equal protection purposes?”
Hartnett stated that they do not dispute the state’s definitions, but argued that their case is attempting to examine if the law creates an “equal protection problem.”
Idaho Governor Brad Little posted a statement to X, saying his state "has always led with common sense" after the state's Solicitor General gave his oral argument in Little v. Hecox on Tuesday.
The case is one of two that is being heard in the Supreme Court regarding the fight to protect women's and girls' sports.
"Idaho has always led with common sense -- it’s why we were the first state in the nation to ban men from competing in women’s sports," Little posted to X. "I’m confident that same common sense will prevail as the Supreme Court reviews our law that set the precedent in defending girls and women."
The Solicitor General, Alan Hurst, spoke for over an hour on Wednesday morning - he was originally slated to answer questions for 30 minutes. The delay, as well as the court speaking with the athlete's attorney overtime, has led to a delay in the second case of the day.
{{#rendered}}Kathleen Hartnett, the attorney for Lindsay Hecox in Wednesday's case, said she was not aware of an example of a boy aiming to play on a girls team for a sport that has a boys squad.
Judge Clarence Thomas asked Hartnett if there could be an argument regarding Title IX and having male and female sports.
"You could have individuals who, for example, don't present the problem of physically outmatching women in a particular sport, or a group of people who don't."
"The broader goal here, of course, is not sex separation for its own sake. The idea is to have equality in sports, and that's the ultimate objective that I think we're all talking about. Not separation."
Thomas then responded that Hartnett's argument could be made with respect to sex separation in Title IX generally.
Hartnett said that there have been boys who have attempted to play on girls' sports teams for sports that are not made available to boys. But, "to be clear, we are not aware of an example of a boy challenging the sex separation so that they could be on the girls team where there's a boys team that exist."
Attorney General Pam Bondi said the fight to ensure the safety and fairness of girls’ and women’s sports in the U.S. is “common sense” as the Supreme Court is in the midst of oral arguments for two landmark cases involving transgender athletes.
“Today, my attorneys are arguing a crucial Supreme Court case pushing back against the trans agenda. Our position: states have the authority to ban men from participating in women’s sports,” her post on X read.
“This is common sense. We are fighting to protect girls and women in the locker room and on the playing field — and we will be successful.”
Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst engaged in a back-and-forth with Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson during Tuesday’s oral arguments in the landmark case of Little v. Hecox over the classification of the state’s law.
Justice Jackson took aim at the clarification of the state law regarding the classification “on the basis of transgender status” when seeking to ban biological males from girls’ and women’s sports, while Hurst argued that the law does not seek to “exclude transgender people from sports.”
“I guess I'm struggling to understand how you can say that this law doesn't classify on the basis of transgender status. The law expressly aims to ensure that transgender women can't play on women's sports teams. So, why is that not a classification on the basis of transgender status,” Justice Jackson questioned.
“It doesn't. It turns on sex,” Hurst responded. “The legislature did not want to exclude transgender people from sports. It wanted to keep women's sports women only and exclude males from women's sports.”
Idaho is among about 30 states with laws preventing biological males who identify as female from competing on girls' sports teams sponsored by public schools and colleges.
{{#rendered}}Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst argued that Idaho's case for keeping transgender athletes out of girls' and women's sports "isn't moot."
Justice Sotomayor mentioned the Acheson Hotels case from 2023, and "we've been directed the case be considered moot."
"There's no reason to question the sincerity of that belief, given that dropping out of sports puts you at a disadvantage, where you lose your competitive edge and she's going to graduate soon," Sotomayor said.
"This case isn't moot," Hurst said.
Sex "discrimination" or gender "fairness" in scholastic activities? The Supreme Court will decide the divisive social question when it holds oral arguments Tuesday in a pair of cases reviewing separate state bans on transgender and non-binary athletes participating in female-only public school sports teams.
The justices are hearing appeals from Idaho and West Virginia, after lower courts struck down state laws, affecting those students from the elementary to college level.
The Trump Justice Department is supporting the state laws and will have time at oral argument to talk about the federal implications.
What the court does here could affect other legal fights over LGBTQ+ rights, including transgender people having access to bathrooms, or sex designation on documents like passports and driver's licenses.
The justices could decide to rule narrowly on the rights of athletic competitors or offer a more sweeping precedent over discrimination claims in the workplace, public spaces, military service, government benefits, housing, health care and education.
This is an excerpt written by Fox News' Shannon Bream and Bill Mears
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments today in two cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., that could determine whether states can ban transgender athletes who identify as women from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams, a legal fight that could have far-reaching implications on transgender policies across the country.
In Little v. Hecox, Lindsay Hecox, a biological man who sought to compete on the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University, contended that Idaho’s law, the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, violated the equal protection clause by excluding transgender women.
The Trump administration is supporting the states in the cases, asserting that Title IX and equal protection permit sex-based distinctions in athletics and criticizing lower courts for undermining states' authority. The solicitor general’s office will be able to present the administration’s case on behalf of the U.S. during Tuesday’s arguments.
This is an excerpt from an article written by Fox News' Ashley Oliver
{{#rendered}}FIRST ON FOX: The nation's Republican governors are warning that women's sports are at risk as the Supreme Court hears a high-profile case over whether transgender athletes should be allowed to participate in girl's and women's sports.
The statement from the GOP governors comes as the nation's highest court on Tuesday hears oral arguments from Idaho and West Virginia in defense of their laws to protect women's sports.
"Recognizing the unique and inherent biological differences between men and women is not radical, it is commonsense," the Republican governors emphasized in a statement shared first with Fox News Digital.
And the GOP governors argued, "Those trying to erase our unique differences and ignore biological reality are doing so in the name of ‘inclusivity.' Forcing women and girls to compete against men, with greater strength and speed, is the opposite of inclusive. It’s unfair. For generations, women fought for equal opportunity on the playing field and won over 50 years ago with the passage of Title IX, and now that right is at risk again."
This is an excerpt from an article written by Fox News' Paul Steinhauser
Imagine if the U.S. Supreme Court was asked to rule on whether the law of gravity still applies, even in these early years of the 21st century.
After all, some people are uncomfortable with their size. They feel sluggish and weighed down by that pull from the Earth. Why shouldn’t they just be able to ignore gravity and float along as easily as they please? Why should any law of nature be allowed to constrain how light and thin someone feels inside?
If that sounds ridiculous to you, imagine how female athletes have felt in recent years, having to compete against males just because they’ve been told that feeling like a woman can make them so.
Their make-believe is our hard reality. And some of us have empty spaces on our trophy shelves to prove it.
Each of us spent a lot of our growing-up years training our minds, straining our bodies and gaining the skills to compete against other girls and women on the athletic field. We worked hard — forfeited a lot of fun and family time — and steadily disciplined ourselves to become better, faster and stronger to win those trophies, stand on winners’ platforms and earn scholarships that could pay for our higher education.
Then something happened that we had no way to predict or prepare for. American sports culture went off the deep end.
This is an excerpt from an Opinion article written for Fox News by former college athletes Madison Kenyon and Mary Kate Marshall
West Virginia Attorney General John McCuskey spoke out in response to allegations of sexual harassment against a transgender athlete who has sued his state to block its law that keeps biological males out of girls' sports.
McCuskey, who is leading his state's legal defense against the trans athlete the U.S. Supreme Court set to review the case Tuesday, addressed the allegations at a press conference Monday.
"Any time you think of a child being harassed, it gives you pause as a parent. And it isn't really part of our case, but harassment of any child of any kind in this country is inappropriate. And it’s wrong, and we all need to stand up to ensure that children aren’t being harassed in any of their venues, particularly athletics," McCuskey said.
The allegations were leveled against the trans athlete by Bridgeport High School student Adaleia Cross, who is a former track and field teammate of the trans athlete when the two were at Bridgeport Middle School.
Cross' mother, Abby, told Fox News Digital what the trans athlete allegedly said to her daughter when they shared the girls' locker room during the 2022-23 school year. Adaleia was in eighth grade, and the trans athlete was in seventh. Abby Cross alleges the trans athlete made extremely graphic and vulgar sexual threats to her daughter and other girls on the team.
This is an excerpt from an article written by Fox News' Jackson Thompson
{{#rendered}}With the U.S. Supreme Court set to rule on two cases focused on the issue of biological males in women's sports, hundreds of prominent figures in sports and politics have publicly taken a side.
At least 77 amicus briefs have been filed for the upcoming court review, some in support of the trans athlete plaintiffs and some in support of the "save women's sports" defendants.
Famed athletes, coaches, U.S. lawmakers and other state and federal government officials have signed onto those briefs, declaring their allegiance in the historic legal battle.
Some athletes, coaches and sports officials supporting the "save women's sports" defendants:
Martina Navratilova, 59-time Grand Slam Champion tennis player, Donna de Varona, Olympic gold medalist swimmer and world record holder, Summer Sanders, Olympic gold medalist swimmer, Riley Gaines, 12-time NCAA All-American swimmer and SEC record holder, Reka Gyorgy, Olympic swimmer and 2× ACC champion, Lauren Miller, professional women’s golfer, Hannah Arensman, professional cyclocross cyclist and national champion, Laura Wilkinson, Olympic gold medalist and world champion diver, Pamela Behrens Golding, Olympic athlete and Jill Sterkel, Olympic swimmer and former University of Texas head swim coach.
Some athletes, coaches and sports officials supporting the trans athlete plaintiffs:
Megan Rapinoe , two-time FIFA Women’s World Cup champion and former co-captain of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team, Layshia Clarendon, former WNBA All-Star point guard and first openly trans and nonbinary player in WNBA history, Lori Lindsey, former U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team midfielder and World Cup veteran, Aimee Mullins, Paralympic track and field world-record holder and former Chef de Mission for Team USA, Breanna Stewart, two-time Olympic gold medalist and two-time WNBA MVP, Sue Bird, Olympic gold medalist, WNBA champion, and Basketball Hall of Famer, Grete Eliassen, six-time X Games medalist in freestyle skiing, Serena Gray, former USA Volleyball national team member and NCAA tournament semifinalist, Molly McCage, Olympic-level volleyball player and League One Volleyball champion and Cassidy Lichtman, former U.S. Women’s National Volleyball Team member and Stanford All-American.
This is an excerpt from an article written by Fox News' Jackson Thompson.
The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday in two cases that could determine whether states can ban transgender athletes who identify as women from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams, a legal fight that could have far-reaching implications on transgender policies across the country.
The arguments in the two cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., will examine state bans on transgender athletes participating in school sports under Title IX and the Constitution’s equal protection clause.
At issue is whether laws in Idaho and West Virginia that prohibit transgender athletes who identify as women from playing on teams that match their gender identity discriminate based on sex.
Lower courts struck down the bans as unconstitutional violations of Title IX and equal protection, and the two Republican-led states appealed to the Supreme Court.
"It’s about Title IX. It‘s about equal protection, and it’s also about common sense, but mostly it’s about protecting women in both academia and on the athletic field," West Virginia Attorney General JB McCuskey told Fox News Digital in a phone interview.
The justices will hear each of the cases Tuesday morning beginning at 10 a.m.
This is an excerpt from an article written by Fox News' Ashley Oliver.
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