By Daniel Payne
CNA Staff, Jul 3, 2025 /
15:33 pm
The U.S. Supreme Court during its next term will consider two cases addressing whether or not states can ban males from participating in female sports leagues.
The high court said on Thursday that it would hear arguments in Hecox v. Little, out of Idaho, as well as the case B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education.
Both cases arose from lawsuits brought by young men who identify as female and who sued against the states’ respective bans on boys competing in girls’ sports.
The West Virginia dispute arose after a then-11-year-old boy brought a lawsuit against the state over its Save Women’s Sports Act. The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the law last year, claiming its enforcement would harm the boy “on the basis of sex.”
In the Idaho case, meanwhile, a male athlete sued the state over its Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which was passed to block males from gaining access to women’s sporting leagues. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals similarly upheld a block on the law in 2023.
This is not the first time Idaho has been to the Supreme Court over transgender policy. The state last year won a temporary victory at the high court when it was given emergency relief that allowed it to enforce its ban on doctors performing sex-change operations on children. Challenges to that law are still playing out in court.
Disputes over transgender ideology have been playing out at the federal level since President Donald Trump took office in January.
Trump that month signed an executive order billed as “defending women from gender ideology extremism,” one that the White House said restored “biological truth to the federal government.”
That order included measures removing gender ideology guidance, communication, policies, and forms from governmental agencies and affirming that the word “woman” means “adult human female.”
It further ordered that government identification like passports and personnel records must reflect biological reality and “not self-assessed gender identity.”
The president also signed orders banning transgender-identifying soldiers from the military and restricting transgender surgeries and drugs for minors. The orders have been challenged in federal court.
The federal government has elsewhere moved quickly to enforce its policies on gender ideology. This week the University of Pennsylvania, under pressure from the Trump administration, agreed to modify its athletic records to re-award several Division I titles to female athletes whose distinctions were overtaken by Lia Thomas, a biological male who identifies as female and who was allowed to compete against women in competitive swimming.
The university is further required to announce that henceforth it will not allow biological males to compete against females in athletic programs. The school will also apologize to female athletes who had to compete against Thomas.
Daniel Payne is a senior editor at Catholic News Agency. He previously worked at the College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.
