The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in two consolidated landmark sports cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J, on January 13, 2026. Both cases center on Idaho and West Virginia state laws that ban gender-confused males from participating in female sports. The cases raise important questions under the federal anti-discrimination statute Title IX and the Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause as to whether these laws can protect females or must yield to “gender identity” and let males compete against females at the expense of competitive fairness and female safety. 

Liberty Counsel filed an amicus brief to the High Court stating that Title IX is based on sex, not gender identity, and any interpretation otherwise that prioritizes protections for gender identity could eliminate Title IX’s sex-based protections for women. The High Court is expected to deliver a ruling in the case by June 2026. 

In Little v. Hecox, SCOTUS will review Idaho’s 2020 “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” and in West Virginia v. B.P.J, it will review West Virginia’s 2021 “Save Women’s Sports Act,” both of which protect the safety and opportunities of female athletes by barring biological males from female competitive sports teams at public schools and universities.

The decision will likely have significant implications across the nation since at least 27 states have similar laws protecting women and girls.

In the brief, Liberty Counsel argues that Title IX recognizes the inherent physiological differences between males and females from birth. Title IX was specifically enacted to increase female participation in sports and to create more athletic opportunities for women, which necessarily involves treating the two biological sexes differently.

Liberty Counsel noted that “gender identity” has nothing to do with sports. Gender identity, like religion or nationality, does not change a person’s biology or physicality, such as how far they can throw or how fast they can run. In competitive sports, the comparisons that matter are an “individual’s capacity to run, lift, jump, throw, hit, punch, or whatever conduct the sport permits.” Only biology should impact Title IX analysis, not any gender identity perception that differs from “a person’s biological and chromosomal reality,” wrote Liberty Counsel.

Studies referenced in the brief offer only one conclusion, which is that biological males are physiologically different than biological females and physiology cannot be “reformatted” by hormones. Therefore, biological males will enter female sports with an inherent unfair advantage because of their male physiology while displacing women in the process, wrote Liberty Counsel.  

In the past year alone, biological males have competed against females displacing women from those slots, breaking records, and sharing locker rooms with females in high schools in California, Maine, Minnesota, Oregon, New Hampshire, Washington, Pennsylvania, and New York. To require females to compete against biological males and to share their private spaces with them infringes upon the safety, fairness, and opportunities of these women and girls and “defies Title IX’s express language,” wrote Liberty Counsel.

As to the Equal Protection Clause, Liberty Counsel concluded that gender identity, which is subject to change over time, does not fall under the Clause because gender identity “does not have an obvious, immutable, or distinguish­ing characteristic” like other protected groups.

In Little v. Hecox, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s injunction blocking Idaho’s law. However, “Lindsay” Hecox, the biological male challenging Idaho’s law so he can run on a collegiate female track team, recently asked SCOTUS to dismiss the case as moot because he no longer wishes to participate in sports. The High Court has yet to decide whether to proceed.

Regarding West Virginia v. B.P.J, the U.S. District Court ruled in favor of the state’s “Save Women’s Sports Act” stating it was based on athletic fairness according to the legitimate differences between the sexes. However, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that ruling equating gender identity discrimination as sex discrimination and declared the law unconstitutional. 

The issue of men in women’s sports also goes beyond the national stage. Notably, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is currently considering new universal rules that would keep males out of female Olympic competitions. IOC President Kirsty Coventry, the organization’s first female president, established the committee’s “Protection of the Female Category” working group, which is taking a science-based review of the competitive differences of gender-confused athletes participating in female sports. Coventry’s initiative began after the most recent Paris Olympics where female boxer Angela Carini surrendered her match after just 46 seconds to Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who has male chromosomes but fought as a female. Carini said she was hit so hard her knees buckled. The IOC is expected to update the Olympic rules before the next Games.

Regarding U.S. Olympic teams, the U.S. Olympic Committee has already announced it will adhere to strict male and female competitors according to President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which directs fair and safe competition for female sports. 

Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said, “Biological reality dictates that men and women are different. These laws acknowledge reality so female athletes are not competitively, physically, and emotionally harmed by gender-confused males in their sports and private spaces. Title IX’s purpose is to provide more opportunities to women and girls. Permitting biological males in female sports would eviscerate the entire purpose of Title IX and erase women in athletics.”