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A date is officially set for oral arguments in two Supreme Court battles that could determine the future of women’s sports.
Tuesday, January 13, 2026 will be the day SCOTUS justices hear arguments on the cases Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. BPJ, which focus on the constitutional rights of states to bar biological males from women’s and women’s sports.
However, Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador, who is one of the lead defense attorneys in the Little v. Hecox case, previously told PK Press Club Digital that he hopes the Supreme Court’s decision will have a deeper impact than just the issue of states’ rights.
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“I think they’re going to have an important decision on whether men can participate in women’s sports and, more importantly, how to determine whether transgender people are protected by the federal constitution and federal and state laws,” Labrador said.
John Bursch of the Alliance of Defending Freedom, a firm that works to defend both cases, suggested that the firm would not rely on the argument that laws on trans athletes should be a matter of states’ rights. He would discuss the matter of the whole situation.
“I don’t think we need to do that,” Bursch said of the states’ rights argument. “It is clearly the right outcome under Title IX, under the equal protection clause and common sense, that men and women are different.”
What you need to know about both cases
The Little v. Hecox lawsuit was originally filed by trans athlete Lindsay Hecox in 2020, when the athlete wanted to join the Boise State women’s cross country team, and blocked state law banning trans athletes from competing in women’s sports.
Hecox was joined by an anonymous biological student, Jane Doe, who was concerned about the risk of being subjected to the gender dispute screening process. The challenge was successful as a federal judge blocked the Idaho state law.
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A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld an injunction blocking the state law in 2023, before the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in July. Hecox then asked SCOTUS last month to drop the challenge, saying the athlete “has therefore decided to permanently withdraw and refrain from playing women’s sports at BSU or Idaho.”
Hecox tried to have the case dismissed in September after the Supreme Court agreed in July to hear the case, but U.S. District Judge David Nye, appointed by President Donald Trump in 2017, denied Hecox’s motion to dismiss the case.
Becky Pepper-Jackson attends the Lambda Legal Liberty Awards on June 8, 2023 in New York. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images for Lambda Legal)
The West Virginia v. BPJ lawsuit was brought against the state of West Virginia by trans athlete Becky Pepper-Jackson, who initially obtained a preliminary injunction allowing the athlete to compete on the school’s sports teams. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. The Supreme Court has now agreed to hear the state’s appeal.
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In a response brief, the athlete’s mother, Heather Jackson, argued that West Virginia law which prohibits transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports violates Title IX.
However, Title IX does not explicitly protect the right of biologically male transgender people to identify as women. The current administration and West Virginia state government do not interpret Title IX to protect this right.
