Students Advance Challenge to Connecticut Trans Athlete Policy

Female high school students suing to ban transgender athletes from participating in girls’ sports in Connecticut can move forward with their lawsuit, a federal district court said.

The students have plausibly alleged that the school-related defendants’ failure to provide sex-separated competition improperly deprived them of high-quality competitive opportunities, Judge Robert N. Chatigny of the US District Court for the District of Connecticut said in a Tuesday order denying their motions to dismiss.

Selina Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, Ashley Nicoletti, and Alanna Smith were all Connecticut high school track athletes when they filed their complaint in 2020 alleging that the Connecticut Association of Schools Inc.'s policy allowing transgender students to participate in girls’ sports constituted discrimination under Title IX. The defendants, which include the association and Connecticut schools, moved to dismiss an amended lawsuit earlier this year.

The ruling comes nearly a year after the full US Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit revived the students’ lawsuit, holding that their alleged injuries were sufficient to provide them with standing to sue. A Second Circuit panel in 2022 affirmed a district court’s order dismissing the case, finding that the plaintiffs failed to establish injury, or that they’re entitled to seek monetary damage.

The students’ amended lawsuit adequately raised an equal treatment claim by alleging that the Connecticut policy affected the fairness of every race in which transgender athletes “participated and thus impacted every biological girl and every team” participating in track events, the court said.

Discrimination on the basis of transgender status constitutes a subset of sex discrimination under Title IX, Chatigny said.

The schools argued that the alleged unequal treatment of plaintiffs was justified by the need to avoid excluding transgender students, and that the term “sex” in Title IX protects transgender girls as well as biological girls. But the regulations implementing Title IX “recognize that sex-separated teams are justified by overriding interests in safety and fair competition, which are grounded in a biological binary,” the court said.

There’s little guidance in the regulations regarding how a court should balance the interest in providing fair competition to biological females, and the interest in providing transgender girls with opportunities to participate in girls’ sports, the court said.

Susan Patton Fox Law Offices and Alliance Defending Freedom represent the plaintiffs. American Civil Liberties Union Foundation and ACLU Foundation of Connecticut represent the defendants.

The case is Soule v. Conn. Ass’n of Sch., D. Conn., No. 20-cv-201, 11/5/24.