Massachusetts stands firm on denying Catholic couple foster parent license — even after state scraps woke policy



Massachusetts officials are standing by their decision to ban a Catholic couple, who hold biblical views on marriage and sexuality, from fostering children, despite a December policy change that removed the state's radical gender ideology mandate for caregivers.

Mike and Kitty Burke, long desiring to become parents, applied to become foster parents in 2022 after learning they would not be able to have children on their own.

'The Commonwealth's doublespeak is exactly why they are pressing for a clear ruling from the court protecting the freedom of religious families to foster and adopt children.'

Despite the couple successfully completing hours of training, extensive interviews, and a home study, the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families denied their request.

The DCF's Licensing Review Team stated that the Burkes were rejected "based on the couple's statements/responses regarding placement of children who identified LGBTQIA," according to the couple's 2023 federal lawsuit against state officials.

At the time of the denial, Massachusetts foster parent licensing policy required applicant parents to "promote the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of a child placed in his or her care, including supporting and respecting a child's sexual orientation or gender identity."

This policy did not include any exemptions for religious perspectives.

RELATED: Blaze News original: Trump gives willing parents hope by taking aim at anti-Christian bigotry in foster system

Photo by Ali Atmaca/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

In December, the DCF issued an emergency amendment that removed the "sexual orientation or gender identity" language in the policy.

The DCF stated that the amendment would "strike the requirement that a foster/pre-adoptive parent or applicant affirm a child's sexual orientation or gender identity and [replace] it with a requirement that a foster/pre-adoptive parent or applicant affirm a child's individual identity and needs."

In a March court filing, Massachusetts officials contended that policy change was irrelevant in the Burkes' case because their denial was based on the rules in effect at the time. Further, they asserted that the denial "did not violate the Constitution" and was "not hostile to religion."

Massachusetts officials argued that "the mere fact that the Burkes could not satisfy" the LGBTQ+ requirements, "whether due to their religion or otherwise, does not clearly establish that denying their license application was unconstitutional."

RELATED: Lawsuit: Massachusetts refuses to allow couple to foster or adopt children because of their Christian faith

Roxbury Department of Children and Families. Photo by Jessica Rinaldi/The Boston Globe via Getty Images

The Burkes maintained that the discovery process proved that their religious beliefs were "the only reason for that denial."

"Mike and Kitty were cautiously hopeful that Massachusetts would finally end its religious discrimination," Lori Windham, senior counsel for Becket, the law firm representing the Burkes, told Blaze News. "But that hope turned to heartbreak when Massachusetts chose to keep fighting them in court. The Commonwealth's doublespeak is exactly why they are pressing for a clear ruling from the court protecting the freedom of religious families to foster and adopt children."

"Mike and Kitty are still open to fostering or adopting children in the future. But Massachusetts has made it harder for them to adopt any child with its discriminatory decision on their record, and that's why they are asking the court to erase it," she added.

A decision in the case is expected by the fall, Windham stated.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

After Being Asked About ‘God’s Sausage,’ James Talarico Says Christians Don’t Care About God’s Gender
play icon

After Being Asked About ‘God’s Sausage,’ James Talarico Says Christians Don’t Care About God’s Gender

'Take it up with the Apostle Paul'

Watch Joe Rogan deprogram Steve-O after stuntman makes claim about transgender 'internment camps'



Wanting to get breast implants as a stunt led to "Jackass" star Steve-O believing transgender-identified people are oppressed.

In 2024, the stuntman planned to get the surgery done for the sake of comedy, telling podcaster Joe Rogan, "This is where the bar is at."

'You can't escape your f**king chromosomes.'

However, the plan fell through when an absent anesthesiologist delayed the procedure. While a doctor was trying to reschedule Steve-O — real name Stephen Gilchrist Glover — the 51-year-old recalled having a change of heart after speaking with a transgender person at a grocery store.

He told Rogan that the "level of oppression" described to him by the person "genuinely f**king broke my heart."

Washroom woes

"They said, 'Hey, let me tell you, I am not allowed to use the bathroom at my own place of work,'" Steve-O claimed before Rogan immediately jumped in.

"That's not true. They're just not allowed to use the bathroom that doesn't align with their biological sex," Rogan began.

Recognizing the reality of "gender dysphoria," Rogan said at least some men were being given a "golden ticket to go into the women's locker room ... and pretend you're a woman when you're just a crazy man and you're actually into women."

He added, "You can't escape your f**king chromosomes ... what you're dealing with is a form of gender dysphoria, which has always been classified as a mental illness until people became much more empathetic and sensitive to people that have this problem."

Camp canard

In one of several cases where Steve-O agreed he had been out-dueled, he then moved on to his next claim: that politicians are trying to put transgender people "in internment camps."

RELATED: Two trans-identifying men file lawsuit against 'dehumanizing' Kansas law that invalidated their driver's licenses

While Rogan agreed there "might be one kook" trying to get attention, he added, "There's no movement to try to put transgender people in internment camps."

Steve-O's claim likely stemmed from reports about Republican Rep. Nancy Mace (S.C.), who was speaking about Charlie Kirk's alleged assassin's alleged transgender partner.

"It was a transgender. ... It was a tranny," Mace said to reporters in 2024. Noting that she has received death threats from transgender activists, she added, "They are mentally ill and should be in a straight jacket with a hard steel lock on it."

As well, Republican Rep. Ronny Jackson (Texas) told Newsmax that transgender people have "legitimate psychiatric issues."

"We have to do something about this, we have to treat these people, we have to get them off the streets, and we have to get them off the internet, and we can't let them communicate with one another."

His statements were also in response to Kirk's assassination, and both his and Mace's remarks were made within five days of Kirk's death. The comments were labeled as calls for institutionalization by some outlets, but there does not appear to be any mention of "internment camps" by any politicians.

Tapping out

During the discussion, Rogan also told Steve-O that transgender people had actually been responsible for more death than Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency Steve-O had spoken out against in February.

RELATED: Supreme Court sides with Catholic parents against California on student gender notification — for now

Photo by Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/FilmMagic

"Do you know who's killed more people than ICE this year? Trans shooters. Do you know the majority of these high school shootings have been transgender people?" Rogan asked.

"I did not know that," Steve-O replied.

After Rogan referenced medications and hormones as not being good to mix with "mental struggles," being "ostracized," and propaganda about trans "genocide," Steve-O soon admitted that Rogan was making good points.

"You've convinced me," the stuntman said.

Rogan then summarized his argument by comparing it to a country's borders.

"Can't have an open border. Doesn't mean that all immigrants are murderers. ... But some people that sneak across the border, if you don't check, are going to be murderers. It's just a fact. So you have to have a f**king closed border to check. And you have to have a gender border too."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Another ‘Detransitioner’ Is Suing Her Pro-Trans Therapist For Malpractice

Publicizing the harm of transgender surgery will vilify the procedures and further isolate them.

Malpractice Suits Are Starting To Bring Down The Transgender Industrial Complex

Insurance companies reviewing the gender mutilation landscape can see nothing but hefty checks written to plaintiffs and their attorneys.

'Silence of the Lambs' star sorry for vilifying transgenderism: 'It's f**king wrong'



He may be a serial killer who wants to wear his victim's skin, but "The Silence of the Lambs" sicko Buffalo Bill is no transphobe.

At least according to Ted Levine, who portrayed the troubled womenswear enthusiast — real name Jame Gumb — in 1991 Best Picture winner "The Silence of the Lambs."

'We all know more, and I'm a lot wiser about transgender issues.'

"There are certain aspects of the movie that don't hold up too well," the actor recently told the Hollywood Reporter. "We all know more, and I'm a lot wiser about transgender issues. There are some lines in that script and movie that are unfortunate."

He added, "It's unfortunate that the film vilified that, and it's f**king wrong. And you can quote me on that."

Basket case

At the same time, the 68-year-old Hollywood vet denied that his character was ever meant to be understood as transgender in the first place.

RELATED: 'I wasn't invited to those parties': Kelsey Grammer mocks woke Hollywood hypocrisy

"I didn't play him as being gay or trans. I think he was just a f**ked-up heterosexual man. That's what I was doing," Levine insisted.

Sick puppy

This interpretation was backed up by "Lambs" producer Edward Saxon.

"We were really loyal to the book," Saxon said. “As we made the film, there was just no question in our minds that Buffalo Bill was a completely aberrant personality — that he wasn't gay or trans. He was sick."

Any connection to transgenderism was an oversight by the production, the producer explained.

"We missed it. From my point of view, we weren't sensitive enough to the legacy of a lot of stereotypes and their ability to harm."

Saxon said that given the fact those involved in the movie had "friends and family who were gay," they thought it would be clear that Buffalo Bill is simply "incredibly sick," not practicing some form of homosexuality.

RELATED: B is for butthead: Raunchy rapper threatens 'bear mace' for ICE agents

Photo by Paul Archuleta/FilmMagic

'It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.'

Skin in the game

Levine's remarks came as the actor reflected on the 35th anniversary of his breakout role — and the staying power of a certain famous line.

"Pain in the ass, but it's OK. Kind of put me on the map," Levine laughed, "But [the annoyance recently] is less so. The edges have worn off. It's not a big deal. It's fine."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Win for kids! Major surgeon group reverses course, comes out against child genital mutilation



Gender ideologues' false narratives and monstrous practices were never a match for common sense, close scrutiny, and ethical review. Nevertheless they were championed in recent years by radical politicians, educators, health professionals, and clerics at the expense of confused minors and mentally compromised adults.

It appears that at least one major professional medical association that previously supported so-called "gender-affirming care" is belatedly correcting course in the wake of a federal crackdown, an overwhelming shift in public opinion, and proof that the sex-rejection regime is vulnerable to civil lawsuits.

'Plastic surgeons should adopt a posture of heightened caution ... recognizing that their role is not simply technical but ethical.'

The American Society of Plastic Surgeons, a group founded in 1931 that represents over 11,000 physician members, claimed in 2019 that it firmly believed "that plastic surgery services can help gender dysphoria patients align their bodies with whom they know themselves to be and improve their overall mental health and well-being." The ASPS further criticized Republican-supported restrictions on so-called "gender-affirming care."

The surgeon group signaled a major change of heart on Wednesday in a policy statement regarding its views "on breast/chest, genital, and facial gender surgery for individuals under the age of 19."

The ASPS noted that in recent years, "a number of international health systems and professional bodies initiated formal re-examinations of earlier clinical practice assumptions in response to patient presentation and a growing uncertainty about the benefits of medical and surgical interventions."

"Systematic reviews and evidence reassessments have subsequently identified limitations in study quality, consistency, and follow-up alongside emerging evidence of treatment complications and potential harms," added the ASPS.

The ASPS made repeated reference both to the United Kingdom's damning 388-page Cass Review, which underscored that the sex-rejection regime was built on weak and unreliable evidence, and to the Department of Health and Human Services' exhaustive peer-reviewed 410-page 2025 report, titled "Treatment for Pediatric Gender Dysphoria: Review of Evidence and Best Practices," which elaborated further on the pseudoscientific and harmful nature of so-called "gender-affirming care."

RELATED: First detransitioner to reach trial awarded $2M in groundbreaking malpractice case against doctors

Luis Soto/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

The surgeons' group noted that these reports and other scientific literature "have contributed to a clearer understanding of potential harms, while also highlighting limitations of the available evidence, including gaps in documenting long-term physical, psychological, and psychosocial outcomes."

In addition to enjoying greater clarity about the ruinous and irreversible nature of "gender-affirming care" and the lack of quality evidence to support its practice, the ASPS noted that "available evidence suggests that a substantial proportion of children with prepubertal onset gender dysphoria experience resolution or significant reduction of distress by the time they reach adulthood, absent medical or surgical intervention."

The ASPS noted in conclusion that "there is insufficient evidence demonstrating a favorable risk-benefit ratio for the pathway of gender-related endocrine and surgical interventions in children and adolescents" and recommended that surgeons "delay gender-related breast/chest, genital, and facial surgery until a patient is at least 19 years old."

The surgeon group indicated further that "plastic surgeons should adopt a posture of heightened caution, enhanced documentation, and explicit uncertainty disclosure, recognizing that their role is not simply technical but ethical."

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., among the many who celebrated the ASPS' disavowal of child sex-rejecting practices, stated, "We commend the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for standing up to the overmedicalization lobby and defending sound science."

"By taking this stand, they are helping protect future generations of American children from irreversible harm," added Kennedy.

Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, chairman at the medical advocacy group Do No Harm, said in a statement obtained by Blaze News, "High praise to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons for taking an important step toward ending the unscientific and harmful practice of sex-rejecting procedures on minors."

"The ASPS becomes the first major medical organization to support evidence-based and ethical medicine and reject, in their words, these harmful and irreversible procedures," continued Goldfarb. "The ASPS’s thoughtful, scientific, and well-reasoned statement today is a model for other medical organizations — namely the Endocrine Society, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and others — to follow and disavow their previous support for experimental and unscientific interventions."

RELATED: 'Not medicine — it's malpractice': Trump HHS buries child sex-change regime with damning report

Photo by Kayla Bartkowski/Getty Images

The ASPS issued its policy statement just days after a woman who underwent a sex-rejection surgery as a minor was awarded $2 million in the first medical malpractice lawsuit brought by a detransitioner to go to trial.

Fox Varian, 22, sued her New York-based psychologist and plastic surgeon, and their respective employers, after regretting the 2019 surgery that claimed her healthy breasts.

Dr. Miriam Grossman, the board-certified child and adolescent psychiatrist who authored the 2023 book "Lost in Trans Nation: A Child Psychiatrist’s Guide Out of the Madness," told Blaze News in 2024 that such lawsuits would help to, at the very least, make practitioners "think twice before they pick up a scalpel and remove the healthy breasts" of a young girl.

"It could be the malpractice carriers will stop covering — if they have to pay out huge amounts, they may think twice about covering the malpractice of these surgeons," added Grossman.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Ketanji Brown Jackson still can’t define ‘woman,’ yet rewrites sex law



How many years of graduate biology did you need to learn the definition of “woman”? Zero. Children grasp the difference between male and female before they can spell either word. Yet liberal Supreme Court justices and the lawyers who argue before them now treat that distinction as unknowable.

This confusion did not happen by accident. Once a culture rejects God’s creation and natural law, nonsense fills the vacuum.

If you cannot define the subject, you cannot defend it. If you cannot name what a woman is, you cannot decide a case where the law turns on protecting women as a class.

God created the world with real distinctions. Those distinctions do not depend on feelings, desires, or political fashion. When people refuse to think according to what is, scripture describes the result as a “darkened mind,” a mind that cannot grasp even basic truths.

This week, the Supreme Court confronted that reality. The cases before it, arising from West Virginia and Idaho, ask whether biological males who identify as female may compete in women’s sports. The exchanges between the justices and counsel revealed more than legal disagreement. They exposed an unwillingness to define the very terms the law requires.

Several of the court’s conservative justices asked what should have been the most basic question: What does it mean to be a man or a woman?

Justice Samuel Alito pressed an attorney for the ACLU on that point. The attorney conceded that he could not offer a definition of “man” or “woman.” He even admitted his notes warned: “Don’t define sex.” Alito then asked the obvious next question: How can a court determine whether discrimination “on the basis of sex” has occurred if no one will say what “sex” means?

That exchange should have ended the argument.

Congress wrote Title IX in 1972. “Sex” meant biological sex. It did not mean “gender identity,” self-conception, or an internal psychological state. It meant male and female. Everyone understood that because everyone lived in that reality.

Yet one attorney urged the justices to avoid deciding the case on the definition of sex, arguing that Title IX’s purpose was not to define sex accurately but to prevent discrimination. That move should make every American nervous.

Discrimination with respect to what? Opportunities based on what? You cannot prohibit discrimination on the basis of sex while refusing to say what sex is. That is not legal reasoning. That is verbal fog.

RELATED: ‘That would have to apply across the board’: LGBT radicals panic as SCOTUS signals win for girls’ sports

Photo by Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images

Justice Sonia Sotomayor leaned into the confusion by suggesting that excluding a biological male who identifies as female from women’s sports is “by its nature” a sex-based classification requiring heightened scrutiny. Notice what happened. The argument claims no one can define sex, yet it demands courts treat sex as a controlling legal category. A category of what, exactly? The reasoning collapses under its own weight.

This is what a darkened mind looks like in public office. People use words after they drain them of meaning. They demand that others affirm a contradiction and call it clarity.

Human beings have understood the difference between boy and girl across centuries and civilizations. This is not advanced biology. It is ordinary knowledge that undergirds family, language, and society.

So what changed?

The distinction between male and female did not become complicated. It remained simple and permanent. That permanence blocks any ideology that tries to rebuild reality around will and self-definition. God created male and female. No court can repeal creation.

Progressive jurists increasingly treat being “assigned” a sex at birth as oppression. The individual must claim sovereignty over reality. The self becomes god. Identity becomes law.

This worldview also reveals hypocrisy. Liberal justices demand that society submit to one person’s internal feelings about identity, while dismissing the concrete concerns of women who do not want to compete against men in zero-sum athletic contests.

RELATED: Top UK court deals devastating blow to cross-dressing activists

Photo by Oliver Contreras / AFP via Getty Images

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson exposed that contradiction when she questioned why the “fear” of women should govern policy. That question reveals the priority system: One set of feelings can redefine reality and restructure competition; another set — concerns about fairness, safety, and equal opportunity — counts for little.

Justice Jackson famously said she cannot define what a woman is, yet she presents herself as a defender of women’s rights. That contradiction matters. If you cannot define the subject, you cannot defend it. If you cannot name what a woman is, you cannot decide a case where the law turns on protecting women as a class.

Natural law has been pushed aside. The created order is treated as optional. What remains is raw will — whatever a judge, an activist, or an institution demands at the moment. That is not law. It is power dressed up in robes.

The consequences extend beyond sports. Women lose opportunities. Men receive rewards for denying reality. Courts move from recognizing truth to enforcing ideological compliance.

Scripture teaches that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). What we witnessed from liberal justices was the opposite: fear of acknowledging God’s created order. When leaders refuse to name basic truths, they do not climb toward enlightenment. They descend into madness.

When justices on the highest court in the land cannot say what a woman is, the problem is no longer sports. The problem is spiritual.

Democrat-controlled states sue Trump admin over defunding of gender ideology



Democratic attorneys general from 12 states are suing the Trump administration in hopes of barring the Department of Health and Human Services from defunding various gender ideology initiatives.

President Donald Trump took a wrecking ball to gender ideology on his first day back in office, declaring in Executive Order 14168, "It is the policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality. Under my direction, the Executive Branch will enforce all sex-protective laws to promote this reality."

James noted that in New York alone, over $80 billion in funding is at risk because of the requirement that applicants comply with the president's reality-affirming order.

In addition to requiring every agency to use the term "sex" and not "gender" in federal policies and documentation, the order tasked each federal agency with ensuring that federal grant funds "do not promote gender ideology."

Pursuant to the EO, the HHS released guidance to the U.S. government, the public, and external partners that sex is an immutable biological classification and that there are only two sexes, male and female.

The HHS also issued a new policy statement indicating that recipients of health, education, and research grants subject to Title IX requirements must be "compliant with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 ... including the requirements set forth in Presidential Executive Order 14168 titled Defending Women from Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government."

The Democrat-run states of California, Colorado, Delaware, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington claim in their new lawsuit that the HHS' enforcement of the directives in Trump's EO violates the Administrative Procedure Act, the guarantee of separation of powers, and the Spending Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

RELATED: 'Not medicine — it's malpractice': Trump HHS buries child sex-change regime with damning report

Luis Soto/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

According to the states, the grant conditions are "impermissibly retroactive because they alter conditions attached to the funds Congress duly appropriated to HHS by imposing new conditions on existing appropriations of federal funds to the States."

They further alleged that the conditions not only constitute an attempt on the part of the HHS to unilaterally amend Title IX but are discriminatory, serving to "exclude transgender, intersex, non-binary, and gender-diverse individuals and make denial of their existence official policy."

California Attorney General Rob Bonta — who was barred last month from enforcing laws that keep parents in the dark about whether their kids are masquerading as members of the opposite sex at school — said in a statement, "HHS has overstepped its constitutional authority and ignored proper procedures in an attempt to codify its hateful agenda."

New York Attorney General Letitia James made clear what's at risk for each Democratic state: tens of billions of dollars in grant funding to ideologically captive institutions. James noted that in New York alone, over $80 billion in funding is at risk because of the requirement that applicants comply with the president's reality-affirming order.

James suggested that the directive was "cruel and unjust."

The Democrat-controlled states want the federal court in Rhode Island to declare the policy unlawful and to block the HHS from enforcing it.

Blaze News has reached out to the HHS for comment.

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

'That would have to apply across the board': LGBT radicals panic as SCOTUS signals win for girls' sports



Just six months after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a Tennessee law banning sex-rejecting genital mutilations and puberty blockers for minors, the high court's questions and remarks during oral arguments on Tuesday regarding two cases concerning men competing on girls' and women's sports teams in Idaho and West Virginia signal that gender ideologues are set to lose more ground.

Background

Twenty-seven states have passed laws and/or regulations prohibiting males from participating in girls' or women's sports.

West Virginia, for example, enacted the Save Women's Sports Act in 2021, requiring public school and collegiate sports teams to require athletes to participate on teams corresponding with their sex.

Becky Pepper-Jackson, a 15-year-old male transvestite in West Virginia who has pretended to be a girl since the third grade and taken puberty blockers, sued the state's board of education as well as other officials, claiming that his exclusion from girls' sports violated both Title IX and the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause.

This case, West Virginia v. B.P.J., has been kicked through the courts and is now before the Supreme Court.

The other case taken up by the high court on Tuesday, Little v. Hecox, is highly similar.

RELATED: 'Incredible victory': Federal judge prohibits trans-related grooming efforts in California schools

Photographer: Kent Nishimura/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Lindsay Hecox, a 24-year-old male student at Boise State University who took cross-sex hormones for only one year, wanted to join the women's cross-country team, where his male physiology would serve as a tremendous advantage over his female competitors. He was unable to join the women's team on account of Idaho's Fairness in Women's Sports Act, which banned male transvestites from competing on female athletic teams.

Like the transvestite student in West Virginia, Hecox sued, claiming the Idaho law violated his constitutional rights.

Both cases were brought to the Supreme Court by the two states' Republican attorneys general with attorneys from Alliance Defending Freedom.

'If we adopted that, that would have to apply across the board.'

"Men cannot become women; their biological differences are scientifically clear. And no ideological arguments attempting to justify allowing males to enter female sports can stand against this truth," stated ADF president and chief counsel Kristen Waggoner.

The possibility that the SCOTUS will rule again against gender ideology has LGBT radicals panicking.

For instance, Erin Reed, the boyfriend of cross-dressing Montana state Rep. Zooey Zephyr (D), wrote that "depending on how the Court rules, these cases could reshape the legal framework governing transgender rights for an entire generation."

The Human Rights Campaign wailed: "As transgender youth continue to face numerous targeted attacks from health care to education, these cases mark another key moment in the fight against anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination that could have implications beyond the sports world."

GLAAD previously stated: "Similar to misleading narratives about bathrooms and other single-sex spaces, propagating inflammatory scenarios about transgender women and girls participating in sports has become a common tactic in broader attacks on trans rights and equality."

Conservative majority signal victory for sanity

In Hecox, liberal justices raised questions about whether the case might be moot because of the transvestic student's claim that he won't attempt to compete in collegiate women's sports again; whether transvestic men with low testosterone levels might qualify as a sub-class deserving of a legal carve-out; and whether the Supreme Court could decide that while most men have an unfair advantage in women's sports, the transvestite in this particular case does not.

Idaho Solicitor General Alan Hurst argued in turn that the case wasn't moot, as Hecox has time left to change his mind about future participation; that it "will always be possible to carve the class down further"; and that an exception would not be administrable as it'd be invasive, requiring ongoing testosterone monitoring of the athlete.

Hurst — who on multiple occasions attempted to help remedy Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's confusion — later emphasized in his rebuttal that male athletes pose a threat to women's sports, citing a 2024 U.N. special rapporteur report that indicated that "over 600 female athletes in more than 400 competitions have lost more than 890 medals in 29 different sports" as the result of male interlopers.

"Idaho's law classifies on the basis of sex because sex is what matters in sports," Hurst said. "It correlates strongly with countless athletic advantages like size, muscle mass, bone mass, and heart and lung capacity."

RELATED: 'Not medicine — it's malpractice': Trump HHS buries child sex-change regime with damning report

Photo by Kirby Lee/Getty Images

The conservative justices appeared to take Hurst's point to heart and signaled skepticism about the arguments alternatively advanced by Hecox's lawyer Kathleen Harnett against the Idaho law.

In addition to noting that the Idaho legislation is not discriminatory against all trans-identifying people as it does not bar women from men's sports but only men — who enjoy physical advantages over women — from women's sports, Justice Amy Coney Barrett alluded to scientific evidence indicating that testosterone is not the only advantage enjoyed by male athletes.

On theme, Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked, "Why would we, at this point, jump in and try to constitutionalize a rule for the whole country" while there remains scientific uncertainty and "strong assertions of equality on both sides?"

Kavanaugh, who has coached his daughters' sports teams, also raised concerns about whether allowing "transgender girls to participate will reverse" the "inspiring" success of girls' separate sports over the past five decades.

While Justice Neil Gorsuch asked whether trans-identifying individuals should be considered a "quasi-suspect" class entitled to a higher standard of scrutiny on account of their alleged history of discrimination, he appeared unconvinced by the argument that excluding boys from girls' sports is a form of unconstitutional sex discrimination.

Chief Justice John Roberts pressed Harnett on whether she was challenging the distinction between boys and girls or seeking an exception to the biological definition of girls, and expressed skepticism about the possibility of such an exception.

Roberts appeared concerned about the broader ramifications of permitting exceptions to the definition of girl for a sliver minority of challengers, noting that "if we adopted that, that would have to apply across the board and not simply to the area of athletics."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!