January 13, 2026 — Morning Report (SCOTUS Day 2, January Quackdown)

Lindsay Hecox, a transgender college student in Idaho, won at the Ninth Circuit on a challenge to Idaho's ban on transgender women in women's sports. She has since asked to withdraw the case for personal reasons. Idaho has opposed withdrawal because the Ninth Circuit decision favorable to Hecox remains binding on the state. The cases were argued separately so the Court could address the withdrawal question as a discrete issue while also taking up the substantive constitutional and statutory questions in the companion case.

B.P.J., who was approximately 12 when the litigation began and is now 15, has been on puberty-blocking medication since childhood and wants to play on her school's girls' sports team in West Virginia. The state's ban on transgender athletes in girls' sports rests on the argument that biological sex — not gender identity — is what Title IX's sex-discrimination protections address. The argument drew heavily on the interplay between Justice Gorsuch's Bostock opinion (Title VII, "because of sex" = "but for" standard) and whether that reasoning extends to Title IX ("on the basis of sex"). Justice Barrett's earlier Skrmetti concurrence had issued what Bryan called "marching orders" — identifying what evidence she would need to recognize transgender people as a protected class under the 14th Amendment — and advocates came prepared this time with historical evidence of discriminatory laws.