Girls’ stand against trans participation in sports sets up 2024 legal battle

[Valin]

Alpha News/The Center Square

The case has attracted national attention and will likely set significant precedent in the ongoing battle over biological males attempting to enter female sports in schools.
Casey Harper

January 7, 2024

(The Center Square) — Four high school female track athletes in Connecticut have stood against the influx of transgender athletes seeking to compete against girls in school sports, likely setting up a defining legal battle of 2024.

The U.S. Court of Appeals rescued the legal challenge, Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools, in December after a lower court dismissed the case. Now, the case will be heard in federal district court and will be a defining moment in the ongoing debate, which has been ramped up by a string of injuries to female athletes at the hands of transgender athletes in recent months.

Those girls say allowing biological boys to compete is unfair and violates Title IX, the federal law that established and protected female school sports by prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex.

The girls in question are Selina Soule, Alanna Smith, Chelsea Mitchell, and Ashley Nicoletti, who say they personally lost to male athletes identifying as female.

They point out that from 2017 to 2019, two transgender athletes won 15 women’s state track championship titles, titles that were previously held by nine female athletes.

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ADF boasted that a range of athletes, coaches, advocacy groups and 23 states have backed the female athletes, filing 12 friend-of-the-court briefs with the 2nd Circuit.

“The en banc 2nd Circuit was right to allow these brave women to make their case under Title IX and set the record straight,” Brook said in a statement. “This is imperative not only for the women who have been deprived of medals, potential scholarships, and other athletic opportunities, but for all female athletes across the country.”