Key Takeaways

The ACLU is seeking to end its challenge to an Idaho law preventing a gender-confused man from competing in women's sports, filing a 'suggestion of mootness' with the Supreme Court.

The case, Hecox v. Little, involves a transgender individual, Lindsay Hecox, who initially sought to join Boise State's women's cross-country team but has since withdrawn, citing personal reasons.

Opponents of the ACLU's motion, like Alliance Defending Freedom, criticize the organization's sudden shift to claim the case is moot after years of ongoing litigation supporting its viability.

ANALYSIS

The ACLU now wants to end its own challenge to an Idaho law that prohibits gender-confused males from competing in women’s sports at the college level.

The organization filed a “suggestion of mootness” with the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear its case this fall. The case, Hecox v. Little, concerns a male named “Lindsay” Hecox (pictured) who wanted to run cross country for Boise State University’s women’s cross-country team, even though he is a man.

“Alongside Idahoans throughout the state, we have been fighting this hateful, unconstitutional legislation since it was introduced,” an ACLU attorney in Idaho declared in 2020, when the group first filed a lawsuit against Idaho. “Embedding this discrimination into Idaho law is unnecessary and harmful to all,” an allied legal group stated.

Now, not so much.

The “suggestion of mootness” effectively asks the Supreme Court to dismiss this challenge to Idaho’s law. It would also vacate a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in Hecox’s favor. The nation’s highest court is set to hear two related challenges this upcoming term. Hecox’s case is centered on whether the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause prohibits biological distinctions in sports. A similar case, West Virginia v. B.P.J. addresses this question and also looks at if Title IX prohibits states from having sex-segregated sports.

Hecox said he will not participate in female sports in Idaho or try out for other teams. He cites his father’s death in 2022 and “negative public scrutiny” as the reason for withdrawing.

While those reasons may be true, it seems also that the ACLU expects another loss at the Supreme Court, as the tide has shifted both in public opinion and in the courts (as would be expected) against transgender ideology.

Just this summer, the Supreme Court ruled states can prohibit gender-confused minors from receiving permanently damaging drugs and surgeries meant to make them look like the opposite sex.

And in the years since the ACLU first filed the lawsuit, President Trump won an election partly on his criticism of transgender ideology and the issue of men playing in women’s sports.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which is acting as co-counsel in both cases, criticized the mootness claim.

“Now, after the ACLU has litigated this case for over five years and repeatedly stressed that this case is a ‘live controversy,’ ‘an actual ongoing controversy,’ and ‘not moot,’ the ACLU is suddenly saying the case is moot and no longer a live controversy,” attorney John Bursch stated in a news release.

“What changed,” he asked.

“The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case.”