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A date has officially been set for oral arguments for two Supreme Court battles that could decide the future of women’s sports.
Tuesday, January 13, 2026 will be the day SCOTUS justices hear arguments on Little vs. The Hecox and West Virginia vs. BPJ cases, which address states’ constitutional rights to ban biological males from women’s and girls’ sports.
Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador, who is a lead defense attorney in Little vs. Hecox, however, previously told Pakinomist Digital that he hopes the Supreme Court’s decision will have a broader impact than simply addressing states’ rights.
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“I think they’re going to have a big ruling on whether men can participate in women’s sports, and more importantly, how to determine whether transgender individuals are protected by the federal constitution and state and federal laws,” Labrador said.
John Bursch of the Alliance of Defending Freedom, a firm working in defense of both cases, suggested the firm won’t lean on the argument that trans athlete laws should be a states’ rights issue. He wanted to argue for the bigger picture.
“I don’t think we need to do that,” Bursch said of making the states’ rights argument. “It is clearly the right result under Title IX, under the Equal Protection Clause, and under common sense, that men and women are different.”
What to know about the two cases
The Little vs. The 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 had the state’s law barring trans athletes from competing in women’s sports blocked.
Hecox was joined by an anonymous female biology student, Jane Doe, who was concerned about the potential of being exposed to the verification process for the sex dispute. The challenge was successful when a federal judge blocked Idaho’s state law.
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A 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals panel upheld a ban blocking the state law in 2023 before the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case back in July. Hecox then asked SCOTUS last month to drop the challenge, arguing that the athlete “has therefore decided to permanently retire and refrain from playing women’s sports at BSU or in 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 City. (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 participate on the school’s sports team. The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the law violated Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause. Now the Supreme Court has agreed to hear the state’s appeal.
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In a response card, the athlete’s mother Heather Jackson claimed that West Virginia law that 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 female. The current administration and the West Virginia state government do not interpret Title IX as protecting this right.
