(LifeSiteNews) — An attorney with the far-left American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is facing criticism for saying the group does “not have a definition” of a man or a woman.
“If anyone was not yet convinced that our country has lost its collective mind, consider that in the Supreme Court today, Justice Alito asked [an] ACLU attorney to define man and woman. Her answer – ‘We do not have a definition for the court,’” wrote Dr. Eithan Haim on X.
“It may seem exaggerated but I can assure you, it is real. The insanity of this cannot be overstated.”
🚨 HOLY SMOKES. SCOTUS Justice Sam Alito asks ACLU lawyer “what is a man and a woman?” and they DON’T HAVE A DEFINITION.
Alito’s response is perfect.
ALITO: What does it mean to be a man or woman?
ACLU: We do not have a definition for the Court.
ALITO: How can a court… pic.twitter.com/E5C9zX35NN
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 13, 2026
Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard arguments for the case Little v. Hecox, which challenges an Idaho law on “transgender” athletes that prevented a gender-confused male from competing on the Boise State University women’s cross-country and track teams.
During questioning, Attorney Kathleen Hartnett, representing the ACLU, said schools can have separate teams for boys and girls. Justice Samuel Alito asked her if that doesn’t require there to be a definition of what boys and girls are.
“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?” asked Alito.
“Sorry, I misunderstand your question. I think that 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,” said Hartnett.
“We do not have a definition for the court,” she clarified.
“How can a court determine whether there’s discrimination on the basis of sex, without knowing what sex means?” rebutted Alito.
The challengers in Little v. Hecox, led by the ACLU, claim that Idaho’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, which prohibits gender-confused males from female sports teams in public secondary schools and universities, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution as well as Title IX.
Title IX is a federal law that ensures female students have the same educational and extracurricular opportunities as male students.
The citing of Title IX is ironic considering that permitting males to compete against women in sports undermines the extracurricular opportunities of females, since males have distinct athletic advantages that cannot be negated by transgender interventions, as research shows.
In a 2019 paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, New Zealand researchers found that “healthy young men [do] not lose significant muscle mass [or power] when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to [below International Olympic Committee guidelines] for 20 weeks,” and “indirect effects of testosterone” on factors such as bone structure, lung volume, and heart size “will not be altered by hormone” use; therefore, “the advantage to [gender-confused men] afforded by the [International Olympic Committee] guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.”
There have been numerous high-profile examples in recent years of men winning women’s competitions. In America since the 1980s, more than 1,941 gold medals in female events that would have gone to female athletes have instead been claimed by men identifying as “transgender women,” and, along with them, more than $493,173 in prize money across more than 10,067 amateur and professional events, according to data compiled by He Cheated and reviewed by Concerned Women for America.