In a press release published on March 24, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced it had filed a statement of interest in a district court in favor of three female athletes from Connecticut who are suing the Connecticut Association of Schools over its transgender athlete policy.
The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Association (CIAC) maintains a policy which allows high school boys to compete in girls’ sports if they publicly claim to be a girl. This policy has led to two biological males taking a combined 15 state championship titles and 85 different opportunities to compete at a higher level from biological girls in Connecticut alone since 2016.
“Allowing biological males to compete in all-female sports deprives women of the opportunity to participate fully and fairly in sports and is fundamentally unfair to female athletes,” Attorney General Bill Barr said in the statement. “The purpose of all-female athletics is to ensure that women have an equal opportunity to participate, compete and excel in this important part of life. As reflected in Title IX, the basis for single-sex athletics, is rooted in the reality of biological differences between the sexes. Clearly then, eligibility to participate on a single-sex team must be based on objective biological fact.”
“Girls should not be forced, through the dismantling of Title IX, to be sidelined in their own sports,” Barr’s statement concluded.
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which filed the suit for the three girls pro bono in the U.S. District Court for the District of Connecticut, released a statement touting the DOJ’s involvement. “The CIAC policy is completely at odds with Title IX, a federal law designed to create equal opportunities for women in education and athletics,” ADF legal counsel Christiana Holcomb said. “As the DOJ rightly explains in its statement of interest filed in this case, ‘Title IX and its implementing regulations prohibit discrimination solely on the basis of sex, not on the basis of transgender status, and therefore neither require nor authorize CIAC’s transgender policy.’”
The U.S. Department of Education (DOE) is also investigating whether the CIAC policy denies basic equal treatment for girls in athletics in violation of Title IX. The investigation began in August 2019.
Concerned Women for America (CWA) also released a statement promoting the DOJ’s statement of interest. “The Attorney General and the DOJ have taken a crucial step in the right direction to protect women’s sports,” CWA’s statement began. “Female athletes are being sidelined by a culture that refuses to stand up to this injustice. Our daughters deserve better. It’s time for the Administration to act and for the court to get it right.”
The reason sports are segregated by sex is to protect women and give both sexes an equal opportunity to compete. Biological males who are generally stronger and faster due to increased bone density, lung capacity and heart size have a biological advantage over female competitors.
We’ll keep you updated on this case as it moves forward.
The case Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools
Related News:
Three Female Athletes Fight Back, File Lawsuit Against Connecticut Transgender Policy
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Photo from Alliance Defending Freedom
