This is a bit strange. A trans athlete who filed a lawsuit against the state of Idaho back in 2020 eventually saw the case selected to go before the Supreme Court. But last week Lindsay Hecox reversed course an said she wanted to drop her case.
This started in 2020 shortly after Idaho became the first state in the nation to pass a law (The Fairness in Women’s Sports Act) requiring athletes to compete on the team that matched their birth sex.
Lindsay Hecox, a runner based in Idaho, was set to represent the women’s team at Boise State University.
— VICE TV (UK) (@vicelanduk) September 16, 2020
However, since the local authority passed the controversial Fairness in Women's Sport Act, this is in jeopardy. pic.twitter.com/amJXpPnlDC
Hecox seems to have become a minor celebrity on the left for a time, being featured in interviews like this.
📱➡️Here’s a sneak peek into The Anti-Trans Hate Machine EP 1! Lindsay Hecox talks with us about choosing to fight back. @alliancedefends
— translashmedia (@translashmedia) June 24, 2021
🎧Listen Here: https://t.co/WHUbUkNyX8
Follow @translashmedia wherever you listen to podcasts. https://t.co/Hw0oxfFYlc #Transtwitter #LGBT pic.twitter.com/gR4YnIA4DH
Meanwhile the court case filed by Hecox made its way up the chain.
A district judge found that the state’s law was likely unconstitutional after attorneys argued that it violated the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection, due process and search and seizure clauses, as well as Title IX, the 1972 law that bars sex discrimination in education.
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision with an injunction that prevented the law from taking effect.
Ninth Circuit Judge Kim Wardlaw wrote in her opinion that the district judge ruled correctly because the act targeted only female students, the Statesman previously reported. The law subjected these students to “an intrusive sex verification process” if anyone disputed their gender and banned them from sports. Idaho also failed to show that the law improved gender equality, Wardlaw wrote.
In June, Idaho's attorney general asked the Supreme Court to hear the case and in July the court agreed. But last week, lawyers for Hecox asked SCOTUS to drop the case saying their client didn't want to face a public backlash.
A student at the center of high-profile Supreme Court challenges to bans on transgender athletes on female sports teams wants the court to drop her case.
Lindsay Hecox, a senior at Boise State University, told the court she’s afraid she will be harassed and have trouble graduating if she continues the challenge.
“From the beginning of this case, I have come under negative public scrutiny from certain quarters,” Hecox said her Sept. 2 request to the court. “I also have observed increased intolerance generally for people who are transgender and specifically for transgender women who participate in sports.”
The attempt to drop the case could be personal as the lawyers claim but it could also be a strategic effort to prevent the court from reaching an adverse decision that will forever have Hecox' name on it.
So is this the end of the case? Yes and no. It could potentially be the end of Hecox's case though the Idaho AG has said they plan to oppose the dismissal.
In the five years since the case began, Hecox has faced "significant challenges that have affected her both personally and academically," the lawyers wrote. They cite an "illness" and the 2022 death of Hecox's father as having impeded their client's "ability to focus on her schoolwork and participate in sports."...
"Ms. Hecox’s unequivocal abandonment of her claims against petitioners renders this case moot, and since the dismissal is with prejudice, there is no possibility of ‘the regeneration of the controversy by a reassertion of a right to litigate,’" it concluded. "Because Ms. Hecox is abandoning her claims after prevailing in the court of appeals, this Court should vacate the underlying judgment."...
The Solicitor General of Idaho wrote in a subsequent filing to the Supreme Court, "petitioners intend to oppose the suggestion of mootness."
However, even if Hecox gets the case dismissed, that does not necessarily mean the issue won't be decided by the Supreme Court. That's because the court agreed to hear two similar cases on the same day, the one from Idaho involving Hecox and another one from West Virginia.
On the same day that the court granted Idaho’s petition for review of the 9th Circuit’s ruling in Hecox’s case, it also agreed in West Virginia v. B.P.J. to hear West Virginia’s petition for review of a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit in favor of a transgender teen who wants to compete on girls’ sports teams. In that case, the court of appeals ruled that a Virginia law barring the teen from doing so violates Title IX, a federal civil rights law which prohibits gender discrimination in educational programs and activities that receive federal funding.
No date for oral arguments has been set yet, so we'll have to wait and see where this goes.
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