A federal appeals court has reversed a Connecticut judge and reinstated a civil rights suit by four female, high school track and field athletes who claim their athletic careers were hurt by a state policy allowing those born as biological males to compete against them as transgender athletes.
The narrowly focused decision Friday by the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit orders the suit to proceed, without resolving the central question raised by the four young women: Whether a policy requiring them to compete against transgender athletes violates Title IX of U.S. civil rights law, which requires schools receiving federal money to provide equal athletic opportunity to women.
Should the women prevail in the reinstated suit, it could lead to a ban against transgender athletic competition.
Coaches, Parents Question Policy For High School Transgender Athletes
The appeals court sent the case back to U.S. District Judge Robert Chatigny in Hartford, who dismissed the suit in April on procedural grounds. Chatigny said, among other things, that there was no longer a dispute resolve because the transgender athletes had graduated from high school.
The appeals court disagreed.
“Whether Plaintiffs’ Title IX claims have any merit is not before us today,” the en banc decision by the appeals court said. “Nor is Plaintiffs’ ultimate entitlement to a remedy. We consider only whether Plaintiffs have standing to sue and whether they can, at this stage, seek monetary damages. Although the specific issues before us are narrow and our decision very limited in scope, questions of standing and the availability of monetary damages have broad implications for all manner of civil rights litigation and civil rights plaintiffs. Precedent and principle require that we proceed cautiously before limiting access to courts and remedies.”
The appeals court said the district court did have jurisdiction and went on to conclude the four high school girls had argued persuasively that they had “a concrete, particularized, and actual injury in fact that is plausibly redressable by monetary damages and an injunction ordering Defendants to alter certain athletic records.”
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