A federal appeals court struck down West Virginia’s law Tuesday. ban transgender girls to play on women’s sports teams, finding that it violates Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools. The move comes amid a wave of anti-trans laws popping up across the country, as well as efforts to combat it.
The ban in West Virginia was initially signed into law by Governor Jim Justice in 2021 and introduced as the “Save Women’s Sports Act.” It required that any official or unofficial school-sanctioned event involving athletics determine each athlete’s participation in the event “on the basis of the athlete’s biological sex, as indicated on the original birth certificate of the athlete issued at the time of his or her birth,” thereby prohibiting transgender students from participating.
The ruling by the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the law cannot be legally applied to a 13-year-old girl who takes puberty-blocking drugs and has been publicly identified as a girl since she was is in third year.
In February 2023, the court blocked the state’s attempt to kicking Becky Pepper Jackson of his college’s athletic team if the law were enforced.
Judge Toby Heytens wrote that offering him a “choice” between not participating in sports and competing only on boys’ teams “is not a real choice at all.”
“Defendants cannot expect BPJ to undo her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers, and coaches for nearly half her life by coming forward to her teammates, to her coaches and even to her opponents, my boy,” Heytens wrote.
Steve Helber/AP
The court ruled Tuesday in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union, its West Virginia chapter and the LGBTQ interest group Lambda Legal, which filed a 2021 lawsuit against state school boards and of the counties and their superintendents as defendants. Republican Governor Jim Justice had signed a bill into law earlier that year.
“This is a huge victory for our client, transgender West Virginians, and the freedom of all young people to play as they are,” ACLU West Virginia attorney Joshua Block said in a statement. “It also follows a series of federal court rulings against banning the participation of transgender athletes and in favor of their equal participation as the gender they know themselves to be. This case is fundamentally about the equality of transgender youth in our schools and communities and we are grateful that the Fourth Circuit agreed.”
In concluding that the law violates Title IX when applied to the girl, the court noted that she had been living publicly as a girl for more than five years and had changed her name, and the state of West Virginia her had issued a birth certificate listing her. as female. The court said she was taking puberty-blocking drugs and was also undergoing estrogen hormone treatment. Starting in elementary school, she only participated in girls’ sports teams.
“BPJ has shown that applying the law to her would treat her worse than people she is in a similar situation with, deprive her of any meaningful sporting opportunities and do so on the basis of sex. That is all that is required Title IX,” Heytens wrote. .
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, said he was “deeply disappointed” by the decision.
“I will continue to fight to save Title IX. We must continue to work to protect women’s sports so that women are kept safe and girls have a truly level playing field,” the attorney general added. “We know the law is correct and we will use every tool available to defend it.”
Jeff Dean/AP
Sports participation is one of the main fronts in the legislative and legal battles in recent years over the role of transgender people in American public life. Most Republican-controlled states have adopted restrictions on participation, as well as bans on gender-affirming health care for minors. Several have also restricted restrooms and locker rooms that transgender people can use, particularly in schools.
West Virginia is one of at least 24 states with a law banning transgender women and girls from participating in certain girls’ or women’s sports competitions.
The bans are in effect in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics, an athletics association for the nation’s small colleges, also announced Monday that its leaders had approved a policy banning transgender women from participating in women’s sports.
Aubrey Sparks, legal director for the ACLU of West Virginia, said in a statement after the ban was overturned Tuesday that the organization hopes the decision “sends a message of hope to trans youth in West Virginia ” as well as “a message of warning to politicians who continue to dehumanize this vulnerable population.” »
In addition to West Virginia, judges temporarily suspended enforcement of bans in Arizona, Idaho and Utah. But the 2nd Circuit last year revived a challenge to Connecticut’s policy of letting transgender girls compete in girls’ sports, sending the case back to a lower court without ruling on its merits.
A ban in Ohio is set to take effect later this month.
The Biden administration had initially planned to issue a new federal Title IX rule — the law prohibits sex discrimination in education — addressing both campus sexual assault and transgender athletes. Earlier this year, the department decided to split them into separate rules, and the athletics rule now remains in limbo.
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