When something is completely incoherent, it tends not to stand up to scrutiny, and that was the story on Tuesday. As RedState reported, multiple state laws banning boys from playing in girls' sports were at the center of oral arguments at the Supreme Court. But while Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson thoroughly exposed her intellectual vapidity, a running theme in these settings since she joined the court, the lawyers arguing that "transgenderism" overrides biological reality weren't much better.
SEE: Plaintiff's Attorney Tops KBJ's Bizarre Word Salad in SCOTUS Trans Athletes Case
Lawyer Kathleen Hartnett, representing the plaintiff in Little v. Hecox, gave what may have been the quote of the day when asked by Justice Samuel Alito to define what it means to be a boy, girl, man, or woman in this case. Instead of providing an answer, Hartnett acted dumbfounded before stating, "We do not have a definition for the court."
ALITO: To pick up on the issue of discrimination on the basis of transgender status, let me just go back to, let me go to some basics. Do you agree that a school may have separate teams for a category of students classified as boys, and a category of students classified as girls?
HARTNETT: Yes, Your Honor.
ALITO: If it does that, then is it not necessary for there to be, for equal protection purposes, if that is challenged under the equal protection clause, an understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl, or a man or a woman?
HARTNETT: Yes, Your Honor.
ALITO: And what is that definition? For equal protection purposes? What does it mean to be a boy or a girl, or a man or a woman?
HARTNETT: Sorry, I misunderstood your question. I think that the underlying enactment, whatever it was, the policy, the law, the... we'd have to have an understanding of how the state or the government, was understanding that term, to figure out whether or not someone was excluded. We do not have a definition for the court.
What Alito is asking is at the very core of the issue. What is being challenged is whether Idaho and West Virginia are violating the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment by drawing clear, biological lines around who can participate in sports, particularly women's sports, given the competitive advantage afforded to males. With that as the backdrop, it is ludicrous to argue a violation of the Equal Protection Clause if the group supposedly suffering the violation can't even be defined.
Of course, it can be defined. Biology exists, and no matter how much the modern Left attempts to use "gender" as a catch-all for delusional self-proclamations of identity, a person's sex is not ambiguous. Some might argue that's not true in the case of those who are intersex (who do still have male or female chromosomal structures), but that is not "transgenderism," nor is that a condition held by any of the plaintiffs in these cases. To put it more succinctly, the "transgender" lobby wants to invalidate duly-passed laws that protect classes based on sex and gender without being able to define those categories.
It's absurd on its face, and once the oral arguments were over, ACLU lawyer Joshua Block did no better with his clean-up attempt.
The attorney representing a trans athlete in West Virginia argued to the Supreme Court that the definition of 'sex' should not be used when ruling on how to enforce Title IX during oral arguments today. I asked the ACLU's Joshua Block what his definition of 'sex' is after the… pic.twitter.com/IthHDpcXIs
— Jackson Thompson (@JackThompsonFOX) January 13, 2026
BLOCK: I don't think that's what is at issue in this case. What's at issue in this case is fair treatment for all people, including cis people and trans people, and that's what we're here to talk about today.
How could the only relevant classification when it comes to defining biological advantage and fairness not be at issue in the case? By the logic being presented to the court, the Equal Protection Clause would apply to anyone who claims to be anything at any point in time. That's an insane deconstruction of the Constitution that would elevate affirmation of mental illness over the basic rights of others. A boy does not suddenly gain the legal right to abuse and violate the privacy of girls in their own sports leagues and locker rooms because he falsely claims to be one.
Could you imagine someone from even 20 years ago waking up in 2025 and witnessing this? They'd be shocked that this is even an argument, much less an argument that needs to be adjudicated by the Supreme Court. But here we are, and while the last several years have shown gains for sanity (including a collapse among young people identifying as "transgender"), the Left isn't going to let this go. They will continue to push until society fully rejects their ideology. In the meantime, we should all be thankful for the Supreme Court's current makeup.
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