It's been an interesting morning in the Supreme Court, where the justices are listening to oral argument on two cases that may well determine the future of the lunatic policy of allowing boys and men to participate in girls' and women's sports. And, as you might expect, some of the comments have been jaw-droppers — especially if you're a biologist.
Full disclosure: I studied biology, unlike Justice Jackson.
First up, we have a lawyer for plaintiff and "transgender woman" Lindsay Hecox, one Kathleen Hartnett, who struggled to produce a definition of something most humans have known since, well, forever — the definition of "man" and "woman." Under questioning from Justice Alito, Kathleen Hartnett sounded distinctly unsure of herself.
Lawyer representing Hecox refuses to define “man” and “woman,” leading Justice Alito to ask how courts are supposed to determine if there’s been sex-based discrimination without knowing “what sex means.” @FDRLST pic.twitter.com/aIHYnfrqfS
— Shawn Fleetwood (@ShawnFleetwood) January 13, 2026
Here's the exchange in writing (I listen to these things so you don't have to):
Justice Samuel 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?
Kathleen Hartnett: Yes, Your Honor.
SA: 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?
KH: Yes, Your Honor.
SA: 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?
Here's where it goes off the rails.
KH: 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.
Let me provide one: If a person has an XY chromosome pair, they are a boy or man. If a person has an XX chromosome pair, they are a girl or woman. It's not complicated. She continues:
KH: And we don't take issue with the... we're not disputing the definition in here, what we're saying is that the way it applies in practice is to exclude birth-sex males categorically from women's teams, and that there's a subset of those birth-sex males where it doesn't make sense to do so, according to the state's own interest.
SA: Well, how can you, how can a court determine whether there's discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means? For equal protection purposes.
KH: I think here we just know it is... we, we basically know the... that they've identified person to their own statute, Lindsay qualifies as a birth sex male. And she's being excluded categorically from the women's teams as the statute. So we're taking the statute's definitions as we find them, and we don't dispute them, we're just trying to figure out, do they create an equal protection problem.
OK, now listening to this, one could be forgiven for wondering just which side of the case Kathleen Hartnett is arguing. Aside from the "birth sex male" horse squeeze — sex is determined genetically at conception, not at birth — she admits that Lindsay Hecox is a boy, and has been excluded from the girls' team as is right and proper. Were I in Justice Alito's shoes, my next question may have been "Can you tell me exactly why we're even here?"
Read More: Morning Minute: Title IX Was Enacted for a Reason - It's Time to Remember That
We can expect this kind of pettifoggery from an attorney for the plaintiff on this issue. But from a Justice of the Supreme Court?
🚨 BREAKING: DEI Justice Ketanji Jackson is DEFENDING men in women's sports with an utter word salad at the Supreme Court
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 13, 2026
"Is treating someone transgender, but does not have, because of the medical interventions and the things that have been done, who does not have, uh, the… pic.twitter.com/QTkpru6EqO
This video is rather longer, but this is the real head-scratcher. This is Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, speaking to Idaho's Attorney General Alan Hurst:
Justice Jackson: And so, to the extent, that you have an individual, who says what is happening in this law is that it is treating someone who is transgender, but who does not have, because of the medical interventions and the things that have been done, who does not have, uh, the same, uh, threat to physical competition and safety and all the reasons the state puts forward — that's actually a different class, says this individual. So you're not treating the class the same. And how do you respond to that?
It's difficult to know where to begin with this, a word salad that would make Kamala Harris blush with envy. This is another case of "What's the question here?"
I can only reply as a biologist, but there's ample evidence that even "transgender women" who have undergone hormone therapy still have the musculoskeletal and cardiorespiratory advantages they were born with. And even if those advantages could be somehow erased, does Justice Jackson propose we set up innumerable examination and evaluation centers, to try to determine whose born advantages have been sufficiently negated?
It seems to me, a legal layman and a biologist, that the solution is a simple one: biological reality. In school sports, boys are boys and girls are girls, and never the twain shall meet. It's worked very well this way for years; each sex has its own inherent advantages and abilities. That we are even questioning this is a bad sign of just how silly segments of our population have become, and how that silliness has managed to make its way onto the United States Supreme Court.
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