This morning, the Supreme Court was the stage for pivotal discussions as justices heard oral arguments on two cases that could significantly impact the contentious issue of allowing transgender athletes to participate in women’s sports. As anticipated, some statements during the session were striking, particularly for those with a background in biology.

In the interest of transparency, it’s worth noting that I have a background in biology, unlike Justice Jackson.

Among those presenting arguments was Kathleen Hartnett, the attorney representing plaintiff and transgender woman Lindsay Hecox. During a round of questioning by Justice Alito, Hartnett faced challenges when asked to define terms that have long been understood by society—namely, the definitions of “man” and “woman.” Her responses suggested a degree of uncertainty.

For those who missed the live proceedings, here’s a summary of the exchange:

At this point in the discussion, things took a complicated turn.

— Shawn Fleetwood (@ShawnFleetwood) January 13, 2026

Here’s the exchange in writing (I listen to these things so you don’t have to):

Justice Samuel Alito: To pick up on the issue of discrimination on the basis of transgender status, let me just go back to, let me go to some basics. Do you agree that a school may have separate teams for a category of students classified as boys, and a category of students classified as girls?

Kathleen Hartnett: Yes, Your Honor.

SA: If it does that, then is it not necessary for there to be, for equal protection purposes, if that is challenged under the equal protection clause, an understanding of what it means to be a boy or a girl, or a man or a woman?

KH: Yes, Your Honor.

SA: And what is that definition? For equal protection purposes? What does it mean to be a boy or a girl, or a man or a woman?

Here’s where it goes off the rails.

KH: Sorry, I misunderstood your question. I think that the underlying enactment, whatever it was, the policy, the law, the… we’d have to have an understanding of how the state or the government, was understanding that term, to figure out whether or not someone was excluded. We do not have a definition for the court.

Let me provide one: If a person has an XY chromosome pair, they are a boy or man. If a person has an XX chromosome pair, they are a girl or woman. It’s not complicated. She continues:

KH: And we don’t take issue with the… we’re not disputing the definition in here, what we’re saying is that the way it applies in practice is to exclude birth-sex males categorically from women’s teams, and that there’s a subset of those birth-sex males where it doesn’t make sense to do so, according to the state’s own interest. 

SA: Well, how can you, how can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means? For equal protection purposes.

KH: I think here we just know it is… we, we basically know the… that they’ve identified person to their own statute, Lindsay qualifies as a birth sex male. And she’s being excluded categorically from the women’s teams as the statute. So we’re taking the statute’s definitions as we find them, and we don’t dispute them, we’re just trying to figure out, do they create an equal protection problem. 

OK, now listening to this, one could be forgiven for wondering just which side of the case Kathleen Hartnett is arguing. Aside from the “birth sex male” horse squeeze — sex is determined genetically at conception, not at birth — she admits that Lindsay Hecox is a boy, and has been excluded from the girls’ team as is right and proper. Were I in Justice Alito’s shoes, my next question may have been “Can you tell me exactly why we’re even here?”