{"id":18739,"date":"2025-07-20T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/?p=18739"},"modified":"2025-07-20T15:27:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T21:27:05","slug":"labrador-letter-supreme-court-tees-up-perfect-chance-to-fully-protect-womens-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/labrador-letter-supreme-court-tees-up-perfect-chance-to-fully-protect-womens-sports\/","title":{"rendered":"Labrador Letter: Supreme Court tees up perfect chance to fully protect women\u2019s sports"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In 2019, the University of Montana allowed a runner named June Eastwood, a biological male who had adopted a female identity, to compete against women. Among Eastwood\u2019s competitors were two young women attending Idaho State University, Madison Kenyon and Mary Kate Marshall, who were unjustly defeated<\/a> by Eastwood on multiple occasions.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The following year, the Idaho Legislature passed HB 500, making Idaho the first state in the nation to protect women and girls from losing to men in their own sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The years since have brought both setbacks and breakthroughs. Gender identity activists at the ACLU immediately sued Idaho to block the law, and so far, the courts have agreed. Meanwhile, cases like UPenn swimmer Lia Thomas \u2014 who became the first man to win<\/a> an NCAA women\u2019s swimming title \u2014 kept the national debate intensifying.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the 2024 election, President Trump made this issue a centerpiece of his campaign, exposing the Democratic Party\u2019s radical stance on gender identity issues. His victory<\/a> paved the way for this February\u2019s executive order<\/a> with a clear message echoing Idaho\u2019s law: Men don\u2019t belong in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mounting cases of men taking medals from women shifted public opinion decisively. A New York Times\/Ipsos poll<\/a> revealed that 79 percent of Americans agree that women\u2019s sports should be for women only. This groundswell of support gave Trump\u2019s executive order real momentum, prompting even the NCAA<\/a> to abandon its policy allowing males to compete against women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet despite this national shift, Idaho remains unable to enforce its own pioneering law, for now. It\u2019s time to end this historic violation of equal opportunity for women and let Idaho guarantee fairness to all of our female athletes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Idaho wasn\u2019t alone in this fight. West Virginia passed similar protections, and predictably, the ACLU sued to block its law, too. Recognizing the need for national clarity, both states joined with attorneys at Alliance Defending Freedom to petition the Supreme Court. On July 3 \u2014 the 135th anniversary of Idaho\u2019s statehood \u2014 the court granted review<\/a> in both cases, giving us the chance to secure nationwide fairness for women and girls who simply want to compete on a level playing field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is an important moment for all of us who are fighting to preserve safety, dignity, and fair competition in women\u2019s sports. While Trump\u2019s executive order pushed the ball forward for branches of the federal government, the Supreme Court\u2019s pending review in Little v. Hecox (Idaho\u2019s case) and West Virginia v. BPJ leaves open the question of whether states can pass laws that preserve the integrity of women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Supreme Court\u2019s recent decision in U.S. v. Skrmetti<\/a> offers an encouraging precedent. That ruling upheld Tennessee\u2019s law preventing medical professionals from subjecting children to dangerous, experimental transition drugs and surgeries. That decision also allowed Idaho to enforce<\/a> our own child-protection law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, Skrmetti left the women\u2019s sports question unresolved. Both Idaho and West Virginia urged<\/a> the court to address this gap by reviewing our cases alongside that precedent. The justices\u2019 decision to grant review suggests they recognized the need for comprehensive clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the Supreme Court agrees with our arguments, that means states will be free to ensure female athletes enjoy a level playing field for competition. Girls will once again be free to become champions in their own sports and pursue collegiate and professional opportunities without fear of losing to the opposite sex.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We couldn\u2019t have gotten here without the brave women who took a stance for their sports, such as the four high school athletes in Connecticut<\/a> who said enough is enough, or the young women in West Virginia<\/a> who intervened to preserve their state\u2019s law, or the aforementioned Madison and Mary Kate, who intervened to protect Idaho\u2019s<\/a> law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s still much more work to be done before we can fully guarantee that women\u2019s sports are fully protected, but there are many signs of hope for a brighter future. As we\u2019ve recently seen, UPenn, which had allowed a male to compete and steal medals from women, changed its tune<\/a> (thanks to pressure by the Trump administration) by apologizing and preventing any more men from competing and restoring the records of female athletes affected by his participation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By granting our cases, the Supreme Court is giving West Virginia, Idaho, and many other states the opportunity to cross the finish line. But more importantly, it\u2019s giving every girl in America a fair chance to win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This op-ed originally ran in The Hill on July 10, 2025<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In 2019, the University of Montana allowed a runner named June Eastwood, a biological male who had adopted a female identity, to compete against women. Among Eastwood\u2019s competitors were two young women attending Idaho State University, Madison Kenyon and Mary Kate Marshall, who were unjustly defeated by Eastwood on multiple occasions.  The following year, the Idaho Legislature passed HB 500, making Idaho the first state […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":81,"featured_media":18528,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[243],"tags":[519,688,1062],"class_list":["post-18739","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions-op-eds","tag-sports","tag-transgenderism","tag-women","cat-243-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18739","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/81"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18739"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18740,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18739\/revisions\/18740"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gemstatepatriot.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}