Little v. Hecox Our challenge to Idaho’s anti-trans sports law

Outcome

On June 30, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Idaho and West Virginia’s bans on transgender women and girls participating on women’s and girls’ sports teams.

We reject many of the majority’s arguments, and we maintain that the equality of transgender women and girls promotes the equality of all women and girls.

Thankfully, the court did not grant what we know the politicians driving this issue wanted from the start: a broad precedent allowing restrictions on the freedom of all transgender people in our schools, workplaces, and communities.

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Contact

Legal Voice Communications
media@legalvoice.org

Background

In 2020, Idaho became the first state to ban trans women and girls from participating in sports at school. The ban, HB 500, also targets nonbinary and intersex students on female teams.

Though many states have gone on to enact similar laws, Idaho’s is especially cruel because it allows anyone to “dispute” the sex of students participating in female athletics. These athletes must then undergo invasive “sex verification” screenings.

Our Argument

HB 500 is illegal because it undermines the right to equal protection. Idaho’s law was developed to discriminate against transgender women and girls. But it also discriminates against all athletes on female sports teams, including those who are cisgender or intersex. Under the law, only these athletes may be subjected to invasive, traumatic medical examinations. Even girls in elementary school could be forced to undergo unnecessary gynecological examinations merely because someone “disputes” their sex. Meanwhile, athletes on male teams face no such treatment.

“…there is no legitimate reason to seek to bar all trans girls and women from girls’ and women’s sport, or to require students whose sex is challenged to prove their eligibility in such intrusive detail.”

— Professor Doriane Lambelet Coleman, whose work was misleadingly cited in the HB 500 legislative findings

“This draft legislation requires some, but not all, student athletes to ‘establish’ their sex… This disparate treatment, which has a likely disparate impact, raises equal protection concerns that would require an exceedingly persuasive justification to overcome.”

—Office of the Idaho Attorney General, in its analysis of HB 500

“We urge that you exercise your veto on House Bill 500 to keep a legally infirm statute off of the books and to save the State from having to pay out substantial legal fees to those who take it to court.”

— Five former Idaho attorneys general, in a letter to Governor Little

“Idaho’s ‘Fairness in Women’s Sports Act’ is anything but fair. It allows any aggrieved individual to force any Idaho student-athlete participating in female sports to undergo an intrusive and personal medical examination to ‘prove’ their sex. No male athletes can be forced to undergo the same. The law has no rational relationship to athletic opportunities or to gender equality.”

—Wendy Heipt, Legal Voice attorney