AUCKLAND, NEW ZEALAND – MARCH 23: L to R, Tracey Hale of Waikato/Bay of Plenty, Kelsey Berryman of Canterbury and Fiona Morrison of Canterbury race in the senior women’s 100m hurdles during the New Zealand Track and Field Championships at Mt Smart Stadium on March 23, 2013 in Auckland, New Zealand. (Photo by Hagen Hopkins/Getty Images)
Editor's Note: In a previous version of this story, NBC Connecticut used language that was transphobic. We have updated our copy and we apologize for our choice of words.
A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit that sought to prevent transgender athletes from competing in girls high school sports in Connecticut.
The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, which oversees scholastic sports in the state, allows high school athletes to compete in sports according to their gender identity. The lawsuit was filed a year ago by cisgender runners who argued they were deprived of wins, state titles and athletic opportunities by being forced to compete against two transgender sprinters.
The lawsuit had been closely watched since the Trump administration’s Justice Department and the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights had sided with the plaintiffs. But the Biden administration withdrew that support in February.
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Conservative lawmakers in more than 20 states have introduced legislation to ban or limit transgender athletes from competing on teams or sports that align with their gender identity. Laws banning transgender women and girls from participating in organized sports have been signed in Idaho, Mississippi, Tennessee and Arkansas.
Arguments in the Connecticut lawsuit centered around Title IX, the federal law that requires equal opportunities for women and girls in education, including sports.
Defense attorney Joshua Block argued the CIAC policy doesn’t deny any girl a meaningful opportunity to participate in sports, but that overturning it would violate the Title IX rights of transgender girls.
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“No court, no agency has ever defined a participation opportunity as winning an equal number of trophies,” he argued.
The plaintiffs argue that the rights of cisgender girls under Title IX are being violated in Connecticut by being forced to compete against transgender athletes.
Plaintiff attorney Roger Brooks, from the Alliance Defending Freedom, argued that the law guarantees girls “equal quality” of competition, which he said is denied by having to race people with what he described as inherent physiological advantages.
The Alliance Defending Freedom said on Sunday that it will appeal the dismissal of the lawsuit.
