U.S. District Judge David Nye refused a last-minute motion to withdraw the case out of Idaho, keeping the state’s dispute over women’s sports alive as it moves toward the U.S. Supreme Court. The suit was filed by a male-born athlete who wanted to compete on Boise State’s women’s cross-country team, and the withdrawal attempt came after the high court agreed to hear the matter. Judge Nye said Idaho deserves its day in court.
U.S. District Judge David Nye just rejected a last-minute effort to scuttle a Supreme Court case on transgender athletes. The Little v. Hecox lawsuit was initially filed by Lindsay Hecox in 2020, challenging a state law barring the biologically male athlete from joining the women’s cross-country team at Boise State. After winning before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, the U.S. Supreme Court granted review. Hecox clearly did not like the prospects on appeal and sought to withdraw the case after the granting of certiorari. Judge Nye just denied that effort.
In the lawsuit, Nye was joined by an anonymous biological female student, Jane Doe, who objected to the sex dispute verification process.
Judge Nye denied the motion to dismiss as too late, ruling that “[Idaho] has a fair right to have its arguments heard and adjudicated once and for all.” He added that “the Court feels [Hecox’s] mootness argument is, as above, somewhat manipulative to avoid Supreme Court review and should not be endorsed.”
Idaho’s law that bars biological males from competing on women’s teams was first enjoined by a district court and that injunction was sustained by the Ninth Circuit. Hecox’s bid to walk away after the Supreme Court granted review looked like a strategic retreat, and the district judge called the timing suspect. The case will now proceed up the judicial ladder for a definitive ruling.
After a district court ruled for Hecox, the Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction blocking the state law in 2023. Counsel for Hecox argued that the athlete “has … decided to permanently withdraw and refrain from playing any women’s sports at BSU or in Idaho.”
Idaho Attorney General Raul Labrador and Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) attorney Kristen Waggoner argued against the effort to drop the litigation before the Supreme Court could rule.
State officials didn’t let the case evaporate. Idaho’s leaders and civil liberties advocates pressed to keep the dispute alive so the Supreme Court can weigh in on statewide policy and national implications.
The high court will also hear a separate appeal from West Virginia that tests similar questions about statutes meant to protect female-only competition. Both cases could set nationwide standards about sex distinctions in school and college sports.
West Virginia is also appealing to restore the “Save Women’s Sports Act” in 2021, after a lower court allowed transgender athlete Becky Pepper-Jackson to compete on the school’s cross-country and track teams. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of Pepper-Jackson.
Outside the courtroom, the reaction is plain and loud. Many young women and girls refuse to compete when a male athlete is on the other side, and coaches and parents worry about fairness and the risk of injury in contact and endurance sports.
Biology is at the center of the debate. Men, on average, have more muscle mass, denser bones, a different distribution of fast-twitch fibers and greater cardiovascular capacity, and those measurable advantages translate into clear performance gaps in many events.
That’s why sex-based categories have existed in sport for generations, and why many states have passed laws to preserve them. The Supreme Court will now be asked to decide whether those state policies stand or fall under national constitutional standards.
The judge’s denial of the withdrawal motion kept the case from disappearing into procedural quicksand and forced the legal question to be answered on the merits. What the justices decide will shape policies at schools and universities across the country.
Court filings and the district judge’s order are a matter of public record.
