Today, Do No Harm and Alliance Defending Freedom hosted a rally on the steps of the Supreme Court as justices heard oral arguments in two cases, Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J, that concern Idaho and West Virginia laws restricting participation in girls’ and women’s sports to the female sex.
The cases have enormous implications not just for girls’ and women’s sports, but for truth, fairness, and the extent to which unscientific and ideological conceptions about sex can influence education and athletics. These laws recognize the reality of biological sex and protect girls from the harms of gender ideology.
The rally achieved a massive turnout, and featured a number of prominent speakers such as House Speaker Mike Johnson, Congressman Byron Donalds, and athlete and advocate Riley Gaines, as well as Do No Harm’s Chloe Cole, Dr. Travis Morrell, Dr. Steve Ward, and Dr. Jared Ross.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, who praised the work of Do No Harm in her remarks, sounded the alarm over the rise of gender ideology in schools across the country.
“Gender ideology has transformed once great academic and athletic institutions into embarrassments, with tragic consequences for our women and for our girls,” she said.
“They reflect a real, troubling pattern of harm inflicted by radical forces looking to reshape our culture,” she continued.
Do No Harm Patient Advocate Chloe Cole shared her story of being subjected to dangerous sex-denying medical procedures as a child under the guise of gender ideology. She explained how the Supreme Court’s decision could open the door to further intrusion of gender ideology into education, healthcare, and elsewhere.
“[The Court is] being asked to rule on something that is even more fundamental: basic biological reality between the two sexes,” she said. “These nine justices are all that stands in the gap.”
“When biological reality is forsaken, it not only allows harm towards vulnerable children, but collateral damage to the rights of a whole sex,” she continued, characterizing gender medicine as “a complete lie.”
“If the biggest court in the land can defend the duty to protect children, then it must also protect all girls, and all women: our privacy, our safety, and our sports,” she concluded, referencing the Court’s decision in United States v. Skrmetti and urging the Court to “choose science, choose truth.”
You can watch full coverage of Do No Harm and ADF’s rally here.
Inside the courthouse, much of the arguments – and questions from the justices – centered on the biological differences between girls and boys that serve as the basis for the Idaho and West Virginia laws.
Associate Justice Samuel Alito posed questions that got to the heart of the case: the reality of biological sex.
“For Equal Protection purposes, what does it mean to be a boy or a girl, or a man or a woman?” Alito asked attorney Kathleen Hartnett, representing the plaintiff in Little v. Hecox.
However, Hartnett failed to provide a definition.
Alito also stressed the fundamental physical differences between male athletes and female athletes in questions to the plaintiffs’ attorneys.
“What do you say about them? Are they bigots?” Alito asked. “Are they deluded in thinking they are subjected to unfair competition?”
In sum, the outcome of these cases will have enormous consequences not just for girls’ and women’s sports, but will be a referendum on truth, fairness, and basic common sense.
As Do No Harm explained in our amicus brief, sex is real and binary.
Do No Harm urges the Supreme Court to recognize biological reality and decide these cases accordingly.
