The trans athletes at the center of Supreme Court cases don’t fit conservative stereotypes

Conservatives have increasingly argued that transgender women and girls have an unfair advantage in sports, that their hormone levels make them stronger and faster. And for that reason, they say, trans women should be banned from competition.

But Lindsay Hecox wasn’t faster. She tried out for her track and field team at Boise State University and didn’t make the cut. A 2020 Idaho bill banned her from a club team, anyway. 

Becky Pepper-Jackson wasn’t necessarily hormonally different from other girls. The 15-year-old West Virginia student transitioned before ever undergoing male puberty. A state ban on transgender athletes is keeping her from playing on her high school’s track team.

Both cases — Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J — will be in the spotlight Tuesday, when the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Lambda Legal will argue to the Supreme Court that the states violated the girls’ rights by banning them from competition.

“It just shows the breadth of these laws,” said Sruti Swaminathan, who is representing Little as a senior staff attorney at the ACLU. “It’s not just about trophies and competitions. It’s even just the mere presence of trans girls on girls teams that’s bothering these states and these advocates on the other side.”

It’s possible that the cases will have big implications for transgender athletes and trans people more broadly — but the ruling may well be limited to the two athletes. Their lawyers will argue that trans athletes in general don’t have an unfair advantage in sports, they said. But they plan to really focus on just Pepper-Jackson and Hecox, whose cases so clearly fall outside conservative stereotypes about transgender athletes. 

“We’re not conceding that somebody that has gone through puberty shouldn’t be able to participate,” said Sasha Buchert, who is representing Pepper-Jackson as a senior attorney at Lambda Legal. “We’re just saying, in this particular case involving this particular athlete, the only athlete in West Virginia that’s a transgender girl … that there isn’t an adequate justification for it.”

The realities of trans women in sports

It’s unknown how many trans athletes are competing in grade schools, college or even professional sports, but advocates insist that the numbers represent a tiny fraction of competitors. NCAA President Charlie Baker in 2024 stated that of the 500,000 college athletes in the country, openly trans people accounted for “less than 10” athletes total. 

Transgender women have competed in sports for decades, although their numbers are small. Scientific research on trans participation in sports is also limited, but studies thus far have not shown any overall physical advantage for trans women over their cisgender peers after medical transition. 

Four recent studies measured physical differences between athletes including hand grip strength and countermovement jump, which measures lower body strength, and found that trans and cisgender women athletes performed similarly. A 2021 study published in the Journal Sports Medicine found no basis in existing research for banning trans women from sports. A 2024 study funded by the International Olympic Committee published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine concluded that transgender women likely had several physical disadvantages compared with their cisgender peers.

But transgender advocates have also argued that fixating on overall physical differences between transgender and cisgender women misses the point. All athletes are born with advantages, they argue, including class, geography, natural strength and other variables. The obsession with bodies denies transgender women their humanity and defaults to cisgender viewpoints, say advocates. 

The legal implications of a loss

The question in front of the Supreme Court is whether the state bans on trans athletes violate Title IX or the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

Because both laws touch on other areas of life, advocates have fretted that a ruling against Hecox and Pepper-Jackson could set a precedent with potential serious consequences for LGBTQ+ freedoms beyond sports.

“The goal of this [anti-trans sports] campaign is not only dividing us against one another, it’s to secure a sweeping legal precedent that endangers transgender people (and other people, including gay, lesbian and bisexual people, and all women) across our lives, not just in sports,” said the ACLU in an explainer. “Depending on the precise language of the court’s ruling, it could likewise implicate our fight for equality in those contexts and potentially many more, like our access to health care and our safety while incarcerated.”

But Ezra Ishmael Young, a lawyer and constitutional law professor in New York, said such a devastating outcome for queer people is highly unlikely given the scope of the legal questions in the case. 

“Even if trans people lost this case, it would only really be a loss in those two narrow contexts. It wouldn’t have any bearing on, for instance, what the International Olympic Committee does, or what the WNBA does, or what the NBA does,” Young said.  

Young said trans rights will continue to default to state law because the question before the court focuses on those, not a national ban. 

“The states that were pro-trans are still pro-trans,” he said. “The states that are not pro -trans, are not pro-trans.”

In other words, a loss might look like the scenario the country currently has, with many states banning trans athletes from competing in their lived genders, while others welcome them. Young believes that the handful of trans athletes attending college would opt for friendly states, if possible.

‘Think about like during the era of segregation, Jackie Robinson went to UCLA because they weren’t segregated,” Young said. “That’s how athletes have always navigated this nonsense.”

In the event of a draw

Even with a 6-3 conservative majority Supreme Court, a loss for Hecox and Pepper-Jackson is not guaranteed, according to experts. It’s not just that the girls have unique stories that set the cases apart. Lawyers for both sides have signaled that the cases may not have all the makings of a blockbuster Supreme Court case because they are limited in scope and foundationally weak.

Young points out that Idaho’s sports ban was passed in 2020 at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when other state houses were shuttering. The virus would kill more than 5,400 people in the state. 

“That’s what even President Trump was directing, this is an extreme emergency, we have to take precautions,” said Young. Idaho called a special session to deal with a health emergency. 

 “The health emergency was trans women and girls playing sports hypothetically, not an actual global pandemic that had already been declared,” Young said. “The context matters. … It’s based upon untruths.”

Young thinks that premise weakens the states’ legal arguments. 

Further, the state of Idaho added new evidence to its Supreme Court briefs that was not heard in lower courts, something generally forbidden by the Supreme Court. The move could prove problematic for Idaho and West Virginia, Young said.

“It’s also confusing, because these cases only apply to two individual students,” Swaminathan said. “The relief sought is only on these individual students’ behalf. It’s not statewide relief.”

The ACLU and Lambda Legal sued on behalf of Hecox and Pepper-Jackson alone, not all transgender people throughout the state or even the nation. Further, Hecox became so distressed by the media attention from the case that she asked the court to drop her case altogether. Hecox said she would no longer play sports. 

Young said it is possible that the court will find the cases moot or no longer relevant as the plaintiffs age out of the respective group sports. 

Hope for a win

Still Lambda Legal and the ACLU say they have a strong case to make before the nation. Lawyers say that once the public is introduced to the women through oral arguments, transgender athletes will have a face. It will be harder to discriminate against them.

“I would like to think that the American public will get a chance to meet Becky,” Buchert said, adding that she recently met Pepper-Jackson and her mom for the first time and watched her throw the discus. Buchert saw the joy it brought her young client. She feels that if other people learn that through court testimony and media interviews, it will be harder to demonize her.

“She’s just such a wonderful kid, just an absolute champ, has gotten so much out of sports — and it’s been so good for her — and is turning into this wonderful adult.”