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# The transgender athlete cases: an explainer **Source:** [SCOTUSblog](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/01/the-transgender-athlete-cases-an-explainer/) **Author:** Amy Howe **Published:** 2026-01-08 **Jurisdiction:** Federal - Supreme Court ## Summary - The Supreme Court will hear two consolidated cases—Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J.—that challenge state bans on transgender women and girls participating in women’s sports, alleging violations of Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. The rulings will determine the extent to which federal civil‑rights law protects gender‑identity‑based participation in school and collegiate athletics. - The plaintiffs argue Idaho’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” and West Virginia’s “Save Women’s Sports Act” unlawfully discriminate on the basis of gender identity under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. - The states defend the statutes through governors, education boards, and private intervenors, asserting that the laws are meant to preserve “fairness” in competition. - The cases have progressed from district‑court injunctions to appellate review (9th Circuit and 4th Circuit) and now certiorari, highlighting key procedural thresholds for Supreme Court review. - The Court’s decision will clarify whether Title IX’s prohibition of sex discrimination extends to discrimination based on transgender status, setting nationwide precedent for similar state measures. - The outcomes may impact future litigation involving LGBTQ‑rights, educational policy, and the balance between anti‑discrimination statutes and state‑regulated sports regulations. ## Content The transgender athlete cases: an explainer Who are the challengers in the cases? There are two challengers – both transgender women – in two separate cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J., which will be argued on the same day, Tuesday, Jan. 13. One challenger is Lindsay Hecox, now 24 years old, who filed this lawsuit when seeking to try out for the women’s track and cross-country teams at Boise State University in Idaho. Hecox did not make the NCAA teams at BSU but competes at the club level. The other challenger is B.P.J., a 15-year-old high school student who has publicly identified as female since the third grade. B.P.J. takes medicine to stave off the onset of male puberty and has also begun to receive hormone therapy with estrogen. B.P.J’s mother, Heather Jackson, went to court on her child’s behalf when she learned that the West Virginia law would bar B.P.J. from participating on the girls’ middle school sports teams. What are the state laws that led to these challenges? Idaho’s law, enacted in 2020, is known as the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. The first of its kind in the United States, the law imposes a flat ban on the participation of transgender women and girls on women’s and girls’ sports teams in public schools at all levels, from elementary school through college. The West Virginia law at the center of that case, the Save Women’s Sports Act, was enacted in 2021. It bars transgender women and girls from participating on women’s and girls’ sports team in public secondary schools and colleges. Who is defending the laws in the Supreme Court? In the Idaho case, the main defender is Bradley Little, the state’s governor, along with Boise State University, various state and local officials, and two collegiate athletes who joined the lawsuit to defend the law. In the West Virginia case, the state is defending the law, along with the state board of education, a county board of education, two state education officials, and a former collegiate soccer player who joined the lawsuit to defend the law. What federal laws and constitutional provisions did the challengers contend the state laws violated? When they filed their lawsuits, Hecox and B.P.J. argued that the Idaho and West Virginia bans, respectively, violate Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding, as well as the Constitution’s equal protection clause under the Fourteenth Amendment. How did these cases get to the Supreme Court? Both of these cases have had long roads to the court. Indeed, Idaho native Elizabeth Prelogar, who spent nearly four years as the U.S. solicitor general in the Biden administration until leaving that job in January 2025, was listed as one of Hecox’s lawyers on her brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit before she was tapped for government service. In August 2020, a federal district court in Idaho temporarily barred the state from enforcing the law, concluding that it likely violated the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of equal protection under the laws. The 9th Circuit upheld the district court’s ruling. It concluded that the law discriminates based on transgender status in violation of the 14th amendment because “its text, structure, findings, and effect all demonstrate that the purpose of the Act was to categorically ban transgender women and girls from public school sports teams that correspond with their gender identity.” The law also discriminates on the basis of sex, the panel continued, because students on girls’ and women’s sports teams, but not “participants in male athletics,” are subject “to invasive sex verification procedures to implement” the law. The full 9th Circuit then declined to rehear the case. In B.P.J.’s case, U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin issued an order in 2021 that temporarily barred the state from enforcing its law against B.P.J. That allowed B.P.J. to compete on the middle school girls’ track and cross-country teams while the litigation continued. In January 2023, however, Goodwin issued a ruling in the state’s favor. B.P.J. appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit, which reversed the district court ruling. In a decision in April 2024, the court of appeals held that the law violates Title IX by discriminating against B.P.J. on the basis of sex. Idaho and West Virginia filed petitions for review of the lower courts’ rulings in July 2024. However, the court waited until after its June 2025 decision in United States v. Skrmetti, a challenge to Tennessee’s ban on certain forms of medical treatment for transgender minors, to grant those petitions. What happened the first time the West Virginia case came to the Supreme Court? After the district court’s 2023 ruling for the state, B.P.J. asked the 4th Circuit to pause that order in hopes of being allowed to continue to participate on the girls’ track team. When the court of appeals granted B.P.J.’s request, the s... --- *Legal Topics: constitutional, civil-procedure* *Difficulty: beginner* *Via SCOTUSblog*