ARIZONA NEWS

Transgender girls go to court over Arizona school sports ban

Apr 18, 2023, 6:00 PM | Updated: Apr 19, 2023, 7:14 am

(Pixabay Photo)...

(Pixabay Photo)

(Pixabay Photo)

PHOENIX (AP) — The parents of two transgender girls in Arizona filed a lawsuit Tuesday challenging a year-old state law banning trans girls from participating in school sports.

Attorneys for the families, whose names are concealed in court documents out of fear for their childrens’ safety, filed a complaint in U.S. District Court in Tucson.

The plaintiffs include an 11-year-old who wants to play girls’ soccer, basketball and cross-country, and a 15-year-old volleyball player. In court filings, they are going by the names Jane Doe and Megan Roe.

“Jane knows this would be because she is transgender, and I worry about how that will affect her self-esteem and her confidence,” her mother said in a statement.

“The ban’s exclusion of plaintiffs from participating in school sports because they are transgender denies them equal treatment under the law,” attorneys wrote in the 21-page complaint.

The attorneys also argued the law violates the Equal Protection Clause under the U.S. Constitution and Title IX.

“It cannot survive constitutional scrutiny and it endangers transgender children,” attorney Justin Rassi said in a news release.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, who is a defendant in the challenge, called the lawsuit’s logic “backwards.” It’s about fairness, he added.

“Title IX was aimed at giving girls equal opportunities for playing sports. When a biological boy plays in a girls’ sport, it disadvantages the girls,” Horne told The Associated Press. “There have been lots of news stories about girls who worked hard to excel at their sports, found they could not when they had to compete against biological boys and were devastated by that.”

Horne said he will contact the office of the Arizona Attorney General about next steps in response to the suit.

The Arizona Interscholastic Association, the Kyrene School District in Tempe and The Gregory School in Tucson are also named as defendants. A spokesperson from each did not immediately return email requests for comment.

In March 2022, then-Republican Gov. Doug Ducey signed off on limiting trans girls from participating in school sports alongside cisgender girls. The issue became front and center in Republican-led statehouses since Idaho lawmakers passed the nation’s first sports participation law in 2020. Prior to that, no state had ever passed a law regulating gender-designated youth sports.

On Tuesday, a similar law was advancing in the North Carolina Senate that would prohibit transgender girls from participating in sports that correspond with their gender identity. The proposal is among the first to advance through committee after Republicans returned from spring recess this week with newly veto-proof margins.

The legislation would designate middle and high school sports by biological sex, determined by what it called “reproductive biology and genetics at birth.” Sponsors promoted the bill as a necessary precaution to protect cisgender girls. But they did not offer an explanation for how the restrictions would be enforced.

LGBTQ+ rights advocates say these GOP-backed bills, and hundreds more across the U.S., are anti-trans attacks disguised as protections for children, and that they use trans people as political pawns to galvanize GOP voters ahead of an election year.

We want to hear from you.

Have a story idea or tip? Pass it along to the KTAR News team here.

Arizona News

(Facebook Photo/Tempe Police Department)...

KTAR.com

Drive-by shooting leaves 1 man dead in Tempe

One man is dead after a drive-by shooting in Tempe early on Sunday morning near Broadmor Drive and Rural Road.

10 hours ago

person holding phone...

KTAR.com

Maricopa County launches alert tool to help residents combat title fraud

Maricopa County recently launched Maricopa Title Alert, a free service to help county residents stay informed of document recordings and protect them against title fraud.

10 hours ago

The Valley is seeing more demand from data center developers that can't find space, land or power i...

Audrey Jensen/Phoenix Business Journal

Phoenix metro data center leasing on track to surpass 2022 levels

As more companies upgrade their technology, data center space has become limited across the country and has helped push Phoenix to the top tier of metro areas for new data center development in recent years.

10 hours ago

(Facebook Photo/ProteinHouse)...

KTAR.com

New health kitchen ProteinHouse owners seek to expand in Arizona

The Valley's three ProteinHouse locations are under new leadership that seeks to open more restaurants in the state.

10 hours ago

Photo provided by Arizona Department of Public Safety....

KTAR.com

Police seize over 200 pounds of fentanyl pills en route to Phoenix

Police seized approximately 230 pounds of fentanyl pills and 10 pounds of cocaine from a vehicle they stopped in southern Arizona on Friday.

1 day ago

(Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)Credit: ASSOCIATED PRESS...

Associated Press

US, allies clash with Russia, China over North Korea’s failed military spy satellite launch

The United States and its allies clashed with Russia and China on Friday over North Korea’s failed launch of a military spy satellite this week in violation of multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions.

1 day ago

Sponsored Articles

...

OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center

5 mental health myths you didn’t know were made up

Helping individuals understand mental health diagnoses like obsessive compulsive spectrum disorder or generalized anxiety disorder isn’t always an easy undertaking. After all, our society tends to spread misconceptions about mental health like wildfire. This is why being mindful about how we talk about mental health is so important. We can either perpetuate misinformation about already […]

...

OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center

How to identify the symptoms of 3 common anxiety disorders

Living with an anxiety disorder can be debilitating and cause significant stress for those who suffer from the condition.

(Photo: OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center)...

OCD & Anxiety Treatment Center

Here’s what you need to know about OCD and where to find help

It's fair to say that most people know what obsessive-compulsive spectrum disorders generally are, but there's a lot more information than meets the eye about a mental health diagnosis that affects about one in every 100 adults in the United States.

Transgender girls go to court over Arizona school sports ban