Federal Judge Refuses to Allow Trans Athlete to End Supreme Court Case
“Hecox agreed to a stay of all proceedings in this case. She [sic] cannot escape the realities of that agreement (or the impact of the Court’s order) simply because she [sic] has had a change of heart.”
United States District Judge David Nye has rejected trans athlete Lindsay Hecox’s attempt to end his/her federal lawsuit, which has reached all the way up to the Supreme Court (where the Equal Protection Project filed an amicus brief).
This ruling demonstrates that good sportsmanship applies whether it is involved in skirmishes on the field or in the courtroom.
It all started in April 2020, when “Lindsay” Hecox, a university student in Idaho, brought a lawsuit challenging the state’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act.”
This law restricts sports participation on women’s college sports teams to women, a completely noncontroversial prospect for anyone who doesn’t rely on TikTok for their science education or political philosophy.
But Hecox, a biological male (also known as a male), wanted to compete on the women’s track and cross country teams.
After several rounds of litigation at a federal district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, both of which concluded the law violated Hecox’s right to equal protection, the case reached the Supreme Court.
And unlike most petitions to the high court, the case was granted for review (which requires the vote of at least four of the nine justices). Clearly, the Court is ready and willing to take this issue on and settle the matter definitively.
Apparently, Hecox was so fired up about his/her case being heard at the Supreme Court, they even agreed to “stay” all proceedings in the district court while the high court was deciding, in order to make sure the case would proceed.
But Hecox, represented by the ACLU, has now filed a motion with the district court to voluntarily dismiss their case. In other words, after getting the case all the way to the Supreme Court, and making sure it would be undisturbed, he/she now wants the whole thing to go away.
Of course, the obvious question is what could possibly have changed between the start of the case and the present that would cause Hecox to perform such a dramatic one-eighty. Why, after fighting for years to get their case to the Supreme Court would he/she now decide to drop the matter?
The answer is obvious: United States v. Skrmetti, in which the Court rejected the precise kinds of equal protection arguments Hecox plans to make, and concluded a Tennessee law banning puberty blockers and hormone therapy for transgender kids (also known as mentally ill kids) was perfectly constitutional.
In other words, Hecox saw the writing on the wall and is now trying to game the system and keep the justices away from rendering the same kind of decision in his/her case and preventing men from playing on women’s sports teams.
Enter Judge Nye.
In his opinion rejecting Hecox’s attempt to withdraw the case, Judge Nye takes him/her to task by noting: “Hecox agreed to a stay of all proceedings in this case. She [sic] cannot escape the realities of that agreement (or the impact of the Court’s order) simply because she [sic] has had a change of heart.”
The court also notes that while “[l]itigation involves strategy,” that strategy “should not overshadow impartiality and justice.”
Instead, as the court notes, the State of Idaho has defended this case vigorously for years and it would be fundamentally unfair to abandon the issue now on the eve of a final resolution.
Of course, it is still up to the Supreme Court whether it will allow the case to proceed or allow Hecox to bow out. But Judge Nye’s ruling is a step in the right direction.
The Supreme Court should allow the case to proceed and protect women’s sports.
Reminder: we are a small organization going up against powerful and wealthy government and private institutions devoted to DEI discrimination. Donations are greatly needed and appreciated.
———–
Timothy R. Snowball is a Senior Attorney at the Equal Protection Project.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
The fact Nye refers to the complainant as her, when Hecox is actually a he, is suggestive of problematic bias in the case, or is there a legal requirement that pretending to be a gender mandates the use of the correct language for that gender?
No, just the opposite. It diminishes any claim the judge is biased against Hecox.
It’s plain common courtesy to call someone what they prefer to be called. People who aren’t trying to be nasty do it as a matter of course, for all ordinary purposes. Only when it matters to the topic, and clarity is needed, does the need to be precise in ones language override the need not to hurt people’s feelings.
I refuse to enforce someone’s mental illness or agree with their warped reality to make them feel better. He is a he.
Great, call me your royal highness then! Reality trumps delusion in the eyes of most.
It’s an attempt to compel speech Milhouse. Our society has a bad habit of “not hurting people’s feelings” in pursuit of being polite. Calling a spade a spade is telling the truth and telling the truth is a higher virtue than being polite.
No one is compelling anything. Since it doesn’t matter what pronouns the judge used for the plaintiff, the judge chooses to be a decent human being rather than a d*ck, and to use the ones the plaintiff has explicitly requested.
I’m perfectly willing to call a Stephen “Stephanie,” if he asks me to politely. His name belongs to him. Pronouns do not, however. He has no say in those whatsoever.
You’re right far more often than most readers here will grant, Milhouse, but you’re dead wrong on this one.
It’s not common courtesy. It’s lying.
Is it really courteous to pretend that someone’s delusions are real?
No on has the right to impose their delusions on others.
Compare:
“No one has the right to destroy another person’s belief by demanding empirical evidence.”
–ANN LANDERS
Congratulations — you have now been righter than a national icon.
Surrendering the language means you accept its worldview.
Expecting someone to embrace your mental illness is insane. When people see a male the should treat them as male and the same for females. It doesn’t matter what someone wants.
Require everyone to take a genetic test to determine if they are male or female and record the results on their birth certificate.
Hopefully the SC will require competitors to take a genetic test to determine if they play on female or male teams.
good this sets precedent
I can’t get over that name,
This turn in a turn of events has really snowballed.
I am so tempted to say “The pronoun you’re looking for is ‘it’.”
The Constitution states that the Court’s jurisdiction is limited to cases and controversies. This he=she is as controversial as you could ever find.
“ Lindsay Hecox’s attempt to end his/her federal lawsuit,”
Not the first time Timothy uses the language of the left when it comes to men with mental health issues!
Which kind of highlights one of the weaknesses of some of the contributors to LI, they may sound like conservatives and they might tell you they are conservative but deep down they are more closer to the old GOP type conservative than they are to actual conservatives.
How can I tell that you don’t actually know any transsexuals, let alone have any transsexual friends.
You can’t change your sex my friend. You can paint your face, adorn your body with clothing of the opposite sex, or cut off body parts, but you are still the biological sex you were born with. Therefore “transsexual” is merely a fantasy.
Whether you want to participate in someone else’s fantasy is your right, but don’t hold me to your low standards.
Did your fake men and women friends inspire you to be a fake lawyer, Outhouse? So stunning and brave!
Seems that SCOTUS has boxed itself in when in Bostock v Clayton County it has already ruled that gender identity is a protected sexual orientation under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
No, it didn’t rule that at all. All it ruled is that an employer must treat all employees the same, and can’t have one set of rules for men and another for women. So if women are allowed to wear dresses men must be allowed too. That’s all.
If a male says he is a female or a 95 pound adult anorexic says they are fat, who am I to argue the obvious?
Exactly — so long as he is not demanding a special benefit for it. It should only become an issue if he does that.
So if I claim to be Black and simply demand regular African-American special privileges, it’s all good, I’m not demanding a special benefit?
A man wanting to be on a woman’s sports team is wanting unique privileges, is a pervert, or both.
Scott Adams announced, tongue in cheek, that he was identifying as Black — he didn’t go so far as demand he be called Black. He said he wanted the special privileges and protections accorded to Blacks at the time, like loan forgiveness to Black farmers and so on. His attempt to shine a spotlight on the ills inherent in government-sponsored equity manipulation resulted in his publications (the comic strip Dilbert, Dilbert calendars, and numerous books) being pulled from distribution.
The insanities of identifying-as-something-other-than-yourself and government (and or NGO) manipulation of class- and/or race-based equity/benefits/free-passes/etc. is wrongheaded and harmful no matter how you slice it.
This Hecox/Shecox matter needs to be resolved once and for all, and the Supreme Court needs to rule on it. And after that, they need to define what a woman is — something that even they don’t agree on.
I believe the Equal Protection Project is just down the hall.
It is also an issue where the person denying reality insists the rest of us must participate in their delusion. That reduces us to NPC status without the ability to use the ‘dialogue’ we choose and are somehow expected or worse required to use the script the irrational person demands.
I dunno, Milhouse. If they’re demanding that I lose my job because Twiggy hates that I don’t refer to her as “chunky” then I think that qualifies as an issue.
As I said, it shouldn’t be an issue unless and until the person demands a special privilege. When they do that it becomes an issue, and it should be fought, politely but decisively. “I’m very sorry to offend you, but the reality is that you are quite thin, and I have to rule in accord with that reality.”
He-cox? Since the lad has a last name with two male oriented meanings he is prohibited by the law of common sense from cosplaying a female.
I highly approve of the writer’s use of “she [sic]” and “he/she”. The Left abuses language to achieve their goals. An example is their adoption of the term “trans woman”, which virtually all but his writer would appear to accept. This term means the person is some type of woman, even though he is actually a man. Wouldn’t a better term be something like “transgendering man”?
I agree, this was a good way to communicate.
In many cases over time in this country people have tried to stop cases they have started when they realize they are not going to win, but the case goes on. This Judge sees what is happening and is following the law. SCOTUS will rule on this.
This time, the process really IS the punishment.
I have a fundamental problem with this issue becoming a matter of politics and litigation. The question being challenged is whether a state can write the rules of eligibility to compete in a track and field competition.
Historically, the USA Track and Field wrote the rules of competition for that field. (I attended annual meetings where such rules were debated at an annual convention.) The rules addressed a wide number of issues other than gender, such as the accuracy of timing equipment, wind gages, and age groups.
When transgender and intersex athletes started raising the issue, the same criteria was used as with all other rules – how to maintain a fair competition. Equal “politiical” rights were not considered. Experts in genetics and physiology were hired, and we gave great deference to international groups that operated under the International Olympic Committee.
The issue here is whether an athlete can use the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment to overturn the expert judgment of the various rule writing committees. Track and Field has investigated the medical evidence and concluded that it is unfair for track athletes to compete against people who have undergone puberty as a male. If the rule writing-experts for car racing or chess and checkers come to the opposite conclusion, that is acceptable too.
The standard should be fairness of the competition, not the belief system of the athletes.
You think these people care about athletics?