UNBIASED Politics
January 15, 2026: ICE Agents Have Absolute Immunity. True or False? PLUS State Dept. Suspends Visa Issuances, Clintons Refuse to Testify in Epstein Probe, Trump Announces New Health Plan, and More.
15 Jan 2026
Chapter 1: What did the judges say about the transgender athlete cases?
Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Thursday, January 15th. Let's talk about some news. First, as a quick heads up, there will be no episode on Monday because of the holiday. However, you can always subscribe to my sub stack to stay informed.
I have been posting some more articles there, which will soon be behind a paywall, but for now it's free. And so the link to subscribe to the sub stack is in the episode description of this episode. It's in the episode description of every episode. So very easy to find. All right, let's start with today's news.
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On Monday, we talked about the two transgender athlete cases that were heard at the Supreme Court on Tuesday. And I essentially prepped you ahead of oral arguments and told you what those cases were about and what arguments we could expect to hear from both sides. So if you want the full rundown of each of those cases, just be sure to tune in to Monday's episode.
Today what I want to do is fill you in on the justices' questions, concerns, and reactions during those Tuesday arguments. That way we can talk about some potential rulings come the summertime when those decisions, you know, are ultimately released.
So just as a quick refresher, both of these cases are about whether state laws that limit participation in women's and girls' sports to biological women and girls violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution and or Title IX of the Education Amendments.
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So one of the two cases focuses primarily on the Equal Protection Clause. The other focuses primarily on Title IX, which is a federal law. The general consensus following oral arguments in both cases is that the states are likely to prevail, meaning the laws are likely to be upheld. But it's not clear at this point how broadly or how narrowly the court will rule. And what I mean by that is this.
The justices do not have to issue this broad sweeping ruling if they rule in favor of the states, right? They can issue a narrow ruling. So they don't have to say like every law that draws distinctions based on transgender status is constitutional under the Equal Protection Clause and is lawful under Title IX.
Instead, they could say something like, hey, when it comes to sports specifically, these kinds of laws do not violate either the Equal Protection Clause or Title IX. And that's the part that's unclear. How broad, how narrow, you know, how exactly are the justices going to rule?
So when it came to the Title IX arguments specifically, several justices brought up the Javits Amendment to Title IX, which specifically allows for
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sex classifications in sports based on biological sex. Remember that Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex when it comes to any educational program that receives federal funding, and that includes sports. But interestingly, the text of Title IX didn't actually ever mention athletics.
It wasn't until the Javits Amendment was enacted two years after Title IX was enacted that athletics, you know, was really discussed. And what the Javits Amendment said is basically, it basically clarified that while Title IX bans sex discrimination and
The amendment also recognized the practicalities of sports and it allowed for separate sports teams based on sex so long as both sexes had equal opportunities in athletics programs. So the regulations provided that if a school has a team for one sex and not the other, members of the excluded sex have to be allowed to try out for the team that is offered and
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unless the exception is if the sport is a contact sport. So it makes for an interesting question, because with the inclusion of the Javits Amendment, Title IX's text and regulations consider the separation of the sexes in certain circumstances, but also simultaneously prohibit sex discrimination. The law does not address how Title IX applies to transgender athletes specifically.
And that is what the justices are weighing. So as I said, several justices brought up the Javits Amendment and how it should be interpreted in this case. The court's three liberal justices seemed to acknowledge that the challengers in both of these cases face a difficult path.
So their questions really focused on narrowing the potential impact of a court's ruling, either by dismissing one case or by limiting the scope of any decision.
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Because remember, the liberal justices and perhaps some of the conservative justices, but mostly the liberal justices, they want to avoid a broad sweeping ruling that could have impacts far beyond sports, right? And speaking of sports specifically, there was broad agreement among the justices that at least in the two cases before the court,
there is no clear scientific consensus on the extent to which transgender girls and women might have a competitive advantage over biological girls and women.
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Some conservative justices suggested that the court should just avoid imposing a nationwide rule until we know more about the science. And that's why it's looking like, yes, although the states may prevail in these cases, we should probably expect a more narrow ruling.
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Now, again, based on the justices' questions alone, it's not totally clear how this is going to go, but there are a few options that we can talk about, and we'll take these one at a time. So option one is that The court avoids deciding the issue, at least when it comes to the Equal Protection Clause. Because as we talked about on Monday, in Little v. Hecox, there is a question of mootness.
Lindsay Hecox has said she no longer wants to compete in women's sports in Idaho, which raises the issue of whether she even still has a personal stake in the outcome of this case. If the majority of the justices decide the case is moot... They could just go ahead and dismiss it without ruling on whether Idaho's law is constitutional. That would mean no decision on the equal protection issue.
However, even if that were to happen, the court would still have to decide the Title IX issue in West Virginia versus BPJ. Option two is that the courts rule very narrowly. So this would mean deciding only the specific legal questions in these cases without setting a broad national rule or diving into similar bans in other states. So in Little v. Hecox, the court might say,
Idaho's law specifically survives constitutional review and leave it at that and not decide any other similar state law and the constitutionality of those laws. In West Virginia, the court could say something like Title IX allows for sex-separated sports teams or Title IX doesn't clearly require the inclusion of transgender athletes.
That would allow states to maintain flexibility in enacting laws like this, but it would also mean that there would be ongoing litigation across the multiple states that do have similar bans. A third option is that they let the state laws stand and mostly stay out of it by saying that these kinds of decisions are up to the states and that it's not really for the courts to get involved in.
Now, this doesn't mean that the Supreme Court doesn't say anything at all, right? It means that the Supreme Court would draw a legal boundary and then and then kind of step back.
So in little, the court might say that laws separating sports teams based on biological sex should be reviewed under a more deferential standard, meaning courts should generally defer to state legislatures on athletic policy. And in West Virginia, the court might say that Title IX doesn't require schools to allow transgender girls to compete on girls' sports teams.
Again, a ruling like that would leave the decision to the states. Each state could do whatever they wanted. Some states could impose bans. Other states could not. It would be up to the states. Now, option four is that the court sets a clear national rule, not just about sports, but about how laws affecting transgender people are reviewed under the Constitution.
And this is the outcome that a lot of people are watching for. So in Little, the court could use this case to answer a much bigger question. When a law treats transgender people differently, how closely should courts review it? And the court could hold that transgender status is entitled to heightened review, meaning states need strong evidence to justify these kinds of rules.
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