Federal Judge’s Recusal Sought in Transgender Sports Case

A Colorado federal judge is being asked to recuse himself from a case regarding a collegiate athletic conference’s policy for transgender athletes over procedures that he adopted for the use of preferred pronouns in his courtroom.

US District Judge Kato Crews adopted practice standards in December that say attorneys are “invited and encouraged to identify the applicable pronouns of counsel, litigants, and witnesses at the earliest juncture possible.”

Outlined in the “Uniform Civil Practice Standards,” if someone uses the wrong pronoun, lawyers are encouraged to “bring that to the Court’s attention at the time, or through a subsequent email to Chambers.”

Lawyers leading the challenge against the Mountain West Conference’s transgender participation policy argue that the civil practice standards restrict the speech of plaintiffs and their lawyers, and also demonstrates potential bias on the topics at issue in the case.

“An impartial forum cannot exist where the Court has so forcefully signaled the Courts’ personal views on sex and gender identity that the Court is willing to use its contempt power to enforce those views,” the lawyers say in the motion.

Crews, an appointee of President Joe Biden who began service in 2024, is one of six judges on the Denver-based federal trial court who’ve adopted similar practice standards. The motion calls for Crews to both step back from the case and for the standards to be scrapped.

The case is: Slusser et al v. Mountain West Conference, D. Colo., No. 1:24-cv-03155