WDI USA Files Amicus Brief Before U.S. Supreme Court

August 15, 2024

On August 14, the US chapter of Women’s Declaration International (WDI USA) filed its first Supreme Court friend-of-the-court brief. The case is Little, et al. v. Hecox, et al. 

Bradley Little is the governor of Idaho and in 2020, he signed a law mandating that schools within the state maintain single-sex sports. A male athlete, Lindsay Hecox, complained that the law violated his rights under Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment because he claims to be a woman and the law said that as a man, he may only compete on his school’s men’s team. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit eventually ruled in favor of the male athlete and Little has asked the Supreme Court to take up the case. WDI USA’s brief urges the Court to do so and explains why the Ninth Circuit’s decision is in conflict with Articles VII and VIII of the Declaration on Women’s Sex-Based Rights. 

Information about the brief and the brief itself can be found on the website of WDI USA. From the brief:

WDI USA is interested in this appeal first because, as an organization, we cannot protect women and girls from sex discrimination, invasions of their sexual privacy, and violence against women and girls, if sex is redefined to mean an amorphous continuum of subjectively felt “genders” that may not be related to sex at all. Second, the ruling below is in direct conflict with two Articles of the Declaration—the primary tool we use to advocate on behalf of women and girls as a sex class. Third, the linguistic destabilization caused by the uncritical use of words like “transgender” (including in this Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, 590 U.S. 644 (2020)) is producing massive confusion throughout society as well as in law, about what basic words like “women,” “girls,” “lesbians,” “men,” “boys,” “sex,” and “gender” mean, and WDI USA has expertise in how the Court can avoid such damaging and unnecessary confusion. In view of its work on these issues, WDI USA has a meaningful perspective to offer the Court.

…

There are at least three reasons for granting certiorari in this case: (1) The nation’s district and circuit courts are bitterly split on how those questions should be answered, causing confusion and chaos across the country; (2) At least seven district courts have ruled that recent administrative rule changes amending the Title IX regulations, see 34 C.F.R. Part 36, exceed the Department of Education’s statutory authority or are otherwise unlawful (and one has gone in the other direction), and lower courts would benefit from this Court’s guidance on the questions presented here; and (3) The ruling below cements in the law the idea that sex either is not real or does not matter, in a manner that concretely harms women and girls as a sex class, using language that is inconsistent with material reality. Amicus urges this Court to grant petitioners’ petition for certiorari and to reverse the Ninth Circuit’s decision affirming the district court’s grant of a preliminary injunction.

Especially given recent controversies concerning the participation of male athletes in women’s sports at the Olympics and Paralympics, the brief could not be more timely. 

Paid-only content follows. If you are not already a paid subscriber and would like access to content that delves deeper into the movement to protect the sex-based rights of women and girls and to stop the abolition of sex, please consider becoming one today.