US Supreme Court set to hear Idaho transgender athlete case

Shannon Tyler, The Idaho Statesman on Nov 15, 2025

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This January, the U.S. Supreme Court is set to hear oral arguments in the Idaho case to decide whether transgender women and girls should be able to participate in sports that align with their gender identity.

Attorneys in the Little v. Hecox case, filed in 2020 by a transgender student at Boise State University after the Idaho Legislature became the first to pass a law that banned transgender women and girls from participating in women’s sports, will go before the Supreme Court on Jan. 13, according to the updated case docket released Wednesday.

The state asked the Supreme Court to hear the case last year, and in July it said it would.

Hecox requested the case be dismissed before heading to the Supreme Court because of the “negative public scrutiny” she had faced since the start of the case. She filed a notice to dismiss the lawsuit in September, but a federal judge in Idaho denied it.

Hecox wrote in a declaration as part of the filing that a large part of her decision to dismiss the case comes from her desire to focus on graduating from Boise State.

“I am afraid that if I continue my lawsuit, I will personally be subjected to harassment that will negatively impact my mental health, my safety, and my ability to graduate as soon as possible,” Hecox wrote.

In U.S. District Judge David Nye’s ruling denying the request, he said the state has a “fair right to have its arguments heard and adjudicated once and for all.” He noted that dismissing the case would leave “critical questions in limbo.”

The court is also set to hear a similar case that same day about a West Virginia teenager whose family challenged a state law requiring students to participate in sports that correspond with their sex assigned at birth.