Concerned Women for America is ecstatic to learn that the U.S. Supreme Court has accepted two cases, Little, Gov. of Idaho, et al. v. Hecox, and West Virginia, et al. v. B.P.J., that will directly confront the controversy over women’s sports for women only.
In many states, this issue is settled. Over half the states have passed laws to protect the female category of sport on the basis of biological sex, not a person’s professed gender identity. But as a country, the debate is far from resolved. States like California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Illinois, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, and more continue to turn their backs on young athletes, forcing them to participate on an unfair and unsafe playing field with boys identifying as girls.
Before closing out its business for the summer, the Supreme Court made a long-awaited decision to hear appeals from Idaho and West Virginia which have been denied the ability to enforce their laws to protect fairness for female athletes. Lower courts in these cases have sided with the ACLU, representing boys who self-identify as girls and want to play on female teams.
Idaho was the first state to pass a Fairness in Women’s Sports law in 2020, but the state was immediately sued by a trans-identifying male college student (Hecox) who wanted to run on the women’s cross country team. Idaho’s law to protect women athletes has been blocked ever since. In West Virginia, the same thing happened, although with a younger trans-identifying male athlete (B.P.J.) who wanted to play girls’ sports in middle school.
As the first state, Idaho’s courage under the leadership of state Rep. Barbara Ehardt drew intense heat from trans activists and those promoting their agenda, including the NCAA, but its strong stand on principle set in motion a movement across the country to follow its lead. Today, 27 states have enacted laws, and two others have acted through their high school athletic associations to protect girls’ sports for girls only.
Acceptance of these cases, which continue to prevent Idaho and West Virginia from protecting women and girl athletes, has been a long time coming. Splits in lower courts have allowed the issues to fester, causing real injury to female students and athletes, and a growing backlash among parents. The ongoing controversy and its implications for the enforcement of federal civil rights laws finally convinced the Supreme Court to weigh in on the issue.
These two cases, which will be heard during the Fall 2025 term, will put the issue of Title IX’s meaning of sex discrimination and the Equal Protection Clause squarely before the court. It will rule on the constitutionality of laws that seek to uphold sex-based classifications literally on the basis of sex, male and female.
As an opinion contributor, I’ve been critical of the Supreme Court’s refusal to enter the debate over women’s rights on the basis of sex for years now, most recently questioning whether the debate over “two genders” was too hot to handle. The Court could no longer escape this question, and together, these cases will most certainly become a landmark decision, helping to resolve the debate over women’s sports and related situations, pitting gender ideology against common-sense biological reality.
Please join CWA in celebrating the decision to hear these cases and in praying for our work to bring CWA’s voice to the court in the coming months.
