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Lawyers for Lindsay Hecox, the transgender athlete at the center of a looming Supreme Court battle over the protection of women’s sports, responded after a federal judge ruled against Hecox’s attempt to dismiss the case.
Hecox initially filed the lawsuit in 2020 to block an Idaho state law, HB 500, which prohibits men from competing in women’s sports, from competing on the Boise State women’s cross-country team. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in July, along with a similar case in West Virginia involving a trans athlete, West Virginia v. BPJ.
Hecox then tried to get the case against Idaho and Gov. Brad Little dropped in September.
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Hecox’s attorneys from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Cooley, LLP and Legal Voice, provided a statement to Pak Gazette Digital after U.S. District Judge David Nye denied the trans athlete’s motion to dismiss the case on Tuesday.
“Lindsay ended her participation in any women’s sports program covered by HB 500 to prioritize finishing her career at Boise State and her personal safety and well-being. Lindsay withdrew her challenge to Idaho’s HB 500 and that remains unchanged,” the statement read. “In West Virginia v. BPJThe US Supreme Court will take up a challenge to a nearly identical law. “We will continue to advocate for the rights of all women and girls, including transgender women and girls.”
When Hecox initially filed the lawsuit in 2020, the trans athlete was joined by an unnamed biological student, Jane Doe, who was concerned about the possibility of being subjected to the sexual dispute verification process. The challenge was successful, as a federal judge blocked the Idaho state law.
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Protesters for and against gender-affirming care for transgender minors demonstrate in front of the Supreme Court on December 4, 2024, in Washington, DC (José Luis Magaña/Associated Press file)
A panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a court order 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, claiming the athlete “has therefore decided to permanently retire and refrain from playing any women’s sport at BSU or in Idaho.”
Madison Kenyon, a former Idaho State University track and distance runner, voluntarily joined the list of defendants in Little v. Hecox along with Little after having to compete against a trans athlete in their freshman year in 2019.
“My coach sat us down in the room and told us that we were going to compete against a male athlete in a specific competition and he just let us know. And I remember sitting there and looking around the room and saying, ‘Well, what do my teammates think about this? What do we do?'” Kenyon previously told Pak Gazette Digital. “So for us, it wasn’t about whether I was going to compete or not. I’m going to put everything I have out there and see what happens. And sure enough, this male athlete beat me, he beat all my teammates, and that continued to happen throughout the season. That’s when I was like, ‘This isn’t fair.'”
Hecox’s efforts to have the case dropped are not completely over, as SCOTUS has yet to rule on whether the case is moot. But Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador, who is leading the defense against Hecox, believes Nye’s ruling is a “good sign” for his efforts to take the case to the nation’s highest court and achieve a landmark ruling.
Labrador previously said he hopes the Supreme Court makes a decision with a broader impact than simply allowing a state to apply its own specific law on the issue. He wants a new national precedent.
“I think that’s what they’re going to do,” Labrador previously told Pak Gazette Digital in an exclusive interview. “I think they’re going to make an important decision about whether men can participate in women’s sports and, more importantly, how to determine whether transgender people are protected by the federal constitution and state and federal laws.”
