Women’s sports on the line as Supreme Court wrestles with defining ‘sex’

The Supreme Court this week heard arguments in a landmark pair of cases regarding the future of women’s sports, but the real drama lies in whether the court will choose to answer an increasingly controversial question: What is a woman?

The arguments in Little v. Hecox and West Virginia v. B.P.J. lasted an unusually long time — more than three hours — with tough questioning from the justices to both sides that mostly focused on highly technical legal standards.

The national context, however, is simple.