# The case that started the trans athlete fight just ended. Not with a verdict, but with a missing enrollment

Months after the Supreme Court upheld Idaho's law, the Ninth Circuit dismissed Lindsay Hecox's suit as moot. The fight has moved to ballots and state courts.

By 567 Politics staff · 567politics
Published: 2026-11-10T20:04:46.788554Z
Updated: 2026-11-10T20:05:18.414773Z
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The lawsuit that started the national legal fight over transgender athletes is over, and it ended on a technicality rather than a final verdict on its facts. On November 5, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held that Lindsay Hecox's challenge to Idaho's Fairness in Women's Sports Act is moot because she is no longer a student at Boise State University. The panel vacated the district court's preliminary injunction and sent the case back with instructions to dismiss it ([Ninth Circuit order, Hecox v. Little, Nos. 20-35813 and 20-35815](https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/11/05/20-35815.pdf)).

The order closes a case that Idaho and its allies spent six years trying to win and that Hecox's lawyers, in its final stretch, tried to end. It follows the Supreme Court's June 30 decision in West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, which held that states may limit girls' and women's teams to biological females. The practical result is that Idaho's law, the first of its kind when it passed in 2020, stands with no pending challenge from the student who brought the original suit. The policy fight has already moved elsewhere: to ballot measures, state courts and school boards in states that had protected transgender athletes, as our report on [the four state sports measures on the November ballot](/news/transgender-school-sports-ballot-measures-arizona-colorado-nebraska-washington-november-2026) described.

## What the Ninth Circuit decided

The panel of Judges Kim McLane Wardlaw, Ronald M. Gould and Morgan Christen found there was no longer a live dispute to decide. "Both sides agree that Hecox is not enrolled at Boise State," the order says, and the university's registrar filed a declaration saying the same.

Hecox had told the court in a supplemental brief that she "intends to re-enroll in Spring 2027." The panel said that was not enough. A party's plan to resume an activity can keep a case alive, the judges wrote, but "such declaration must be sufficiently concrete." They contrasted it with January 2023, when the same court had rejected an earlier mootness argument because Hecox then "expressed a concrete plan to re-enroll after establishing Idaho state residency and try out for the track and cross-country teams" and "had a conversation with a BSU academic advisor." This time, the order says, "she offers only a conclusory statement of intent to enroll in Spring 2027 without identifying tangible or actual steps taken to effectuate re-enrollment."

Without enrollment, the panel concluded, the case is no longer "a present controversy as to which effective relief can be granted," quoting a 1988 circuit precedent. The order does not address the merits again. It notes that the Supreme Court "clearly rejected the narrow basis upon which we affirmed the district court's preliminary injunction."

## How the case got here

Hecox sued in 2020 because she wanted to try out for Boise State's women's track and cross-country teams. She did not make the NCAA teams but played women's club soccer, according to [SCOTUSblog's account of the Supreme Court decision](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-states-can-exclude-transgender-athletes-from-girls-and-womens-sports-teams/). The district court blocked Idaho from enforcing the act, and the Ninth Circuit agreed, reasoning that the law was intended "to categorically ban transgender women and girls" from teams matching their gender identity.

```diagram
type: timeline
title: Hecox v. Little, from Idaho's law to dismissal
source: [Ninth Circuit order](https://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2026/11/05/20-35815.pdf), [SCOTUSblog](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-states-can-exclude-transgender-athletes-from-girls-and-womens-sports-teams/), [Alliance Defending Freedom](https://adflegal.org/press-release/adf-urges-supreme-court-to-deny-aclu-attempt-to-moot-womens-sports-case/), [Idaho Attorney General](https://www.ag.idaho.gov/newsroom/attorney-general-labrador-responds-to-attempt-to-dismiss-supreme-court-case-protecting-womens-sports/)
---
2020: Idaho enacts the Fairness in Women's Sports Act, the first such state law
2023-01-30: Ninth Circuit rejects an earlier mootness argument, citing Hecox's plan to re-enroll
2025-07: Supreme Court agrees to hear Little v. Hecox with West Virginia v. B.P.J.
2025-09-03: Hecox's lawyers ask the Supreme Court to dismiss the case as moot
2025-09-29: Idaho opposes dismissal at the Supreme Court
2026-01: Both cases argued on the same day
2026-06-30: Supreme Court upholds the Idaho and West Virginia laws
2026-11-05: Ninth Circuit vacates the injunction and orders dismissal as moot
```

The mootness question had come up before the Supreme Court ruled. After the justices agreed to hear the case, Hecox's lawyers at the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion asking the Court to dismiss it. In the Supreme Court's opinion, as the Ninth Circuit recounted, the justices noted that Hecox had said she "will cease playing women's sports in any context covered by the Idaho law," but rejected the mootness suggestion because she had changed her mind before and "remains an enrolled student at Boise State." By the time the case returned to the Ninth Circuit, she was no longer enrolled.

## The two sides' readings of the mootness fight

Idaho and its allies saw the 2025 dismissal attempt as an effort to avoid a loss. "After five years, Idaho's law protecting women's sports has finally reached the U.S. Supreme Court. Now, the ACLU wants to drop the case because they know the strength of our argument," Attorney General Raúl Labrador said in September 2025 ([Idaho Office of the Attorney General](https://www.ag.idaho.gov/newsroom/attorney-general-labrador-responds-to-attempt-to-dismiss-supreme-court-case-protecting-womens-sports/)). Idaho's response, as the attorney general's office summarized it, argued that the Court has an interest in preventing parties from manipulating the judicial process by dismissing cases only when they face potential unfavorable rulings.

John Bursch of Alliance Defending Freedom, which represented two female athletes who intervened to defend the law, made the same point. He said the ACLU had for five years called the case "a live controversy" and was "suddenly saying the case is moot" after the Supreme Court took it ([ADF statement](https://adflegal.org/press-release/adf-urges-supreme-court-to-deny-aclu-attempt-to-moot-womens-sports-case/)).

The record shows a simpler reading is also available. A plaintiff who stops playing a sport, or leaves a school, can lose the personal stake that federal courts require, whatever the motive. The Ninth Circuit's order applied that rule and did not discuss motive. Labrador's office had itself predicted in 2025 that if the case were found moot, "the lower court rulings would likely be vacated, potentially allowing Idaho's law to take effect but leaving unresolved the broader legal questions." In the end both things happened in sequence: the Supreme Court resolved the broader questions first, and the case was then dismissed.

## What the Supreme Court held in June

Justice Brett Kavanaugh's opinion for the Court held that "the States may maintain women's and girls' sports for biological females" and "may determine eligibility for women's and girls' sports based on biological sex," SCOTUSblog reported. The justices agreed unanimously that the Idaho and West Virginia laws do not violate federal civil rights law, but split 6-3 on the constitutional question as applied to the West Virginia athlete.

The majority applied intermediate scrutiny, the test for sex classifications, and found the laws substantially related to the states' interests in "safety and competitive fairness." Kavanaugh wrote that courts making individualized exemptions for athletes who had taken puberty blockers or hormones would create "an enormous practical and administrability problem," and that legislatures and schools "are better equipped" to weigh the medical and scientific questions, which he called "the subject of ongoing medical and scientific debate."

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, dissented on the constitutional claim. She would have sent the West Virginia case back for more fact-finding on whether athletes who never went through male puberty are similarly situated to other girls. "In the end, to the Court, the facts do not matter, even though the consequences are serious," she wrote.

The ACLU called the ruling "heartbreaking." "The reality is that the equality of transgender women and girls takes nothing away from, and in fact promotes, the equality of all women and girls," said Joshua Block of the ACLU's LGBTQ & HIV Rights Project ([ACLU statement](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/attorneys-for-transgender-student-athletes-respond-to-supreme-court-ruling-in-bpj-and-hecox)). Sasha Buchert of Lambda Legal said transgender youth "are targeted for specific and baseless discrimination." Kelly O'Neill, Legal Voice's Idaho attorney, said "we should be removing barriers for girls and women in sports, not creating new ones."

## How many states restrict transgender athletes

There is no single agreed count, because sources date their tallies differently and some include policies as well as laws. The differences are small but worth showing, since each figure is often cited as if it were the only one.

```chart
type: bar
title: Number of states restricting transgender athletes, by source
note: Counts of states. SCOTUSblog: Idaho plus 25 states with similar laws (June 30, 2026). Supreme Court majority: states drawing the same line, as quoted by SCOTUSblog. ACLU: states banning transgender youth from school sports since 2020. Chalkbeat: states adopting laws or policies since 2020 (Nov. 10, 2026).
source: [SCOTUSblog](https://www.scotusblog.com/2026/06/court-rules-that-states-can-exclude-transgender-athletes-from-girls-and-womens-sports-teams/), [ACLU](https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/attorneys-for-transgender-student-athletes-respond-to-supreme-court-ruling-in-bpj-and-hecox), [Chalkbeat](https://www.chalkbeat.org/2026/11/10/transgender-sports-restrictions-in-blue-states-meet-official-resistance/)
---
Source | States
SCOTUSblog, laws | 26
Supreme Court majority | 27
ACLU | 27
Chalkbeat, laws or policies | 29
```

The highest figure, from [Chalkbeat](https://www.chalkbeat.org/2026/11/10/transgender-sports-restrictions-in-blue-states-meet-official-resistance/), includes both laws and policies and was published after the November 3 election. None of these counts includes the ballot measures voters approved that day, some of which are now in court.

## Where the fight has moved

The Supreme Court's ruling allowed states to restrict participation but did not require them to. That has turned the question into a state-by-state political and legal contest. On November 3, voters in Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska and Washington approved measures limiting transgender athletes' participation, Chalkbeat reported, even as Democrats won large gains in several of those states.

In Washington, parents of transgender and non-transgender athletes and the state teachers' union sued on November 9 to block Initiative 638, and the Seattle school board voted unanimously the same day to pursue its own legal action, according to Chalkbeat. Seattle board member Joe Mizrahi said the district does not know how to comply with the initiative while also following state laws on student privacy, discrimination and equal access. "Those protections also reflect the will of the people," he said. Our earlier report covers [the Washington lawsuit and Colorado's rewrite debate](/news/washington-i-638-lawsuit-colorado-prop-134-135-rewrite-transgender-sports-measures-november-2026).

Brian Heywood, who funded Initiative 638, told Chalkbeat that female athletes had felt pressured to accept what they saw as unfair competition, and that the measure is "not a MAGA thing." Jennifer Sey, a backer of the Colorado measure, said the results showed that "protecting girls' sports was never about right versus left." On the other side, Aidan Key of the Washington group Gender Diversity said the state's inclusive policy, in place since 2007, had worked; the state's athletic association estimates about 10 transgender athletes take part each year out of roughly 250,000, according to Chalkbeat.

State law can also cut the other way. In New York, an appellate court struck down Nassau County's ban on transgender women's teams at county facilities under the state's human rights law, as we reported on [the Nassau County ruling](/news/nassau-county-transgender-sports-ban-struck-down-appellate-division-blakeman-november-2026). And the Supreme Court has continued to send transgender-rights cases back for reconsideration in light of B.P.J., including [a Colorado jail-housing case on November 9](/news/supreme-court-roybal-v-griffith-transgender-jail-housing-remand-november-2026).

## What remains open

The Ninth Circuit order ends Hecox's own lawsuit, but it leaves some questions unanswered. If Hecox re-enrolls in 2027, as she has said she intends, any new challenge would have to contend with the Supreme Court's ruling that the law is constitutional as applied to her equal protection claims. The order does not say whether any other aspect of her case, beyond the equal protection claims the Supreme Court rejected, could have survived; it did not need to reach that question.

Public opinion is also outside this ruling. Chalkbeat wrote that polling "consistently shows" majorities uncomfortable with transgender athletes in girls' and women's sports, but this article did not review a specific poll for this story, and the ballot results reflect the voters in four states rather than the nation. Claims on both sides about safety and fairness also remain disputed: the Supreme Court majority treated the science as unsettled and deferred to legislatures, while the dissent said the facts in the West Virginia case had not been fully tried.

Campaign finance note: no 567politics profile is mapped for the Idaho officials named here, so no FEC funding review applies; Labrador and Governor Brad Little hold state offices, whose campaign finance records are filed with the Idaho Secretary of State and were not reviewed for this article.

## Photo and reporting note

Photo: Idaho State Capitol building in Boise. Quintin Soloviev, [original file](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Idaho_State_Capitol_building.jpg), [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0). Cropped for publication. The court order was read in full from the Ninth Circuit's website.