Judge Denies Protection for Girls from Transgender Athletes

Lawyers for four Connecticut women will appeal a judge’s decision to dismiss their lawsuit that asks for girls’ athletics to be protected from men who insist they are women.

The judge argued that the case was moot because the two males who had scooped up many women’s trophies have graduated from K-12 schools. The judge also claimed that males could get female legal status under 2016 regulations issued by then-President Barack Obama.

The decision was unsurprising because the judge had earlier tipped his hand by requiring the lawyers to describe the two “transgender” males as women.

Lawyers for the girls say they want a federal court decision that protects girls’ sports from the next set of males who claim to be women.

“We will appeal this decision, and the coalition committed to ensuring women have fair play is growing stronger,” said an April 25 tweet from Kristen Waggoner, a lawyer with the Alliance Defending Freedom law firm.

Waggoner tweeted:

Young women and girls like Alanna, Chelsea, Selina, and Ashley have been sent a harmful message from the Court: their rights as women do not matter.

Today, the court wrongly dismissed the girls’ case. Women deserve equal opportunities, but those opportunities are denied when policies like the CIAC’s [Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference] force female athletes to compete against biological males.

Title IX was intended to require schools to provide equal opportunities for women and girls. Today’s decision undermines women’s rights and ignores what we all intuitively know: biology matters in sport.

Men & women are equal but different. Males are born w/physical advantages that give them many athletic advantages over females.

@alliancedefends will continue to fight for Selina, Alanna, Chelsea, Ashley, and female athletes everywhere.

This isn’t a partisan issue; it’s a women’s issue. #SaveWomensSports #FairPlay 

The case is Selina Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools, No. 3:20-cv-00201 in the U.S. District of Connecticut.