Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito cleverly stumped a liberal lawyer on Tuesday by asking her to explain the simple concept of biological sex.
The high court was hearing arguments for and against transgender athletes participating in women’s sports when Alitio asked a lawyer representing transgender athletes “what it means to be a boy or girl or a man or a woman.”
The back-and-forth exchange with lawyer Kathleen R. Hartnett began with Alito first asking her this question: “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?”
“Yes, your Honor,” she replied.
“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?” Alito pressed.
“Yes, your Honor,” Hartnett responded, taking his bait.
“And what is that definition? For equal protection purposes, what does — what does it mean to be a boy or a girl or a man or a woman?” Alito then asked.
Absolutely incredible…
JUSTICE ALITO: To decide if there’s discrimination on the basis of sex, we need to define what sex is, right?
ACLU lawyer: Yes, your honor.
ALITO: What does it mean to be a man or woman, a boy or girl?
ACLU lawyer: We do not have a definition. pic.twitter.com/vHWjiK8HNW
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) January 13, 2026
Not surprisingly, Hartnett — a leftist attorney — was completely stumped and left desperately trying to change the topic.
“Sorry, I misunderstood your question,” she said. “I think the underlying enactment, whatever it was, the policy, the law, we’d have to have an understanding of how the state or the government was understanding that term to figure out whether someone was excluded.”
“We do not have a definition for the court. We’re not disputing the definition here. What we’re saying is the way it implies in practice is to exclude birth-sex males categorically from women’s teams, and there is a subset of those birth-sex males where it doesn’t make sense to do so according to the state’s own interest,” she added.
But Alito refused to let it go.
“How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex without knowing what sex means for equal protection purposes?” he asked.
Harnett, in turn, continued babbling mindless bull.
“I think here we just know, we basically know that they’ve identified pursuant to their own statute, Lindsay qualifies as a birth-sex male, and she is being excluded categorically from the women’s teams as the statute,” she said.
“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?” she added.
What did that even mean!?
Slightly switching topics himself, Alito then posed a hypothetical scenario about a school with separate boys’ and girls’ track teams.
“A student who has the genes and the reproductive system of a male and had those at birth and has never taken puberty blockers, never taken female hormones, never had any gender-altering or affirming surgery, says, nevertheless, I am a woman, that’s who I am,” Alito said.
“Can the school say no, you cannot participate on the girls’ team?” he then asked.
Harnett was again stumped.
Tuesday’s hearing was attended by Cissie Graham Lynch, the daughter of Rev. Franklin Graham. Speaking later with Fox News, she rightly noted that the whole case boils down to biological sex — a concept so fundamental to humanity it’s even in the Bible.
“This isn’t a political issue, this is a Genesis 1 issue,” she explained. “Regardless of what the Supreme Court decides, God’s Word is clear—men are men and women are women. And today, I’m grateful girls finally had their historic day in court to say just that.”
“I believe the winds of change are coming and people will realize this [the obsession with so-called transgenderism] is not a good thing. It’s damaging. It’s heartbreaking. When you turn away from God’s design, it never ends well,” she added.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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