A federal court continued a lower court block on an Arizona law that restricts transgender students on sports teams. (Getty Images)
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals continued a block Monday on an Arizona state law that bans transgender girls in public schools from playing on any girls’ team from being enforced while a lawsuit against it moves forward, upholding a lower court’s decision
Last year, two young girls sued the Arizona Department of Education and their schools over the trans athlete ban alleging that it violates multiple federal protections, including the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth Amendment and Title IX , which prohibits sex based discrimination.
A preliminary injunction was approved by a federal court in Tucson in July 2023 that allowed the two girls to play on a team that best reflects who they are while the case continued its way through the process. However, Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma challenged that ruling, arguing that allowing the girls to join those teams is detrimental to their cisgender peers.
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Democratic Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has refused to defend the law in court.
The three-judge panel at the Ninth Circuit affirmed the trial court’s decision to block enforcing the law.
“Today’s ruling from the 9th Circuit is a relief for our family”, said Helen Doe, mother of plaintiff Jane Doe in a written statement. The two teens who filed the suit are using pseudonyms in the case. “With this ruling, our daughter can continue to play with her friends, make new friends, and experience all the benefits that school sports have to offer.”
The mother of the other plaintiff also expressed their family’s relief by the ruling.
“Megan is over the moon and immensely relieved to learn of the court’s decision allowing her to play the sport she loves on the team that has always welcomed her as one of their own,” Kate Roe, mother of Megan Roe, said in a written statement. “Having watched her blossom across the last season as both an athlete and a young woman, her dad and I are deeply thankful to the whole legal team that has fought so hard for her basic right to play ball on the team where she so clearly belongs.”
The ruling holds that the lower courts’ decision and opinion that the children are not at an advantage relative to their cisgender peers were correct.
“The panel held that the district court did not clearly err finding that, before puberty, there are no significant differences in athletic performance between boys and girls; treating small differences as insignificant; and finding that transgender girls who receive puberty-blocking medication do not have an athletic advantage over other girls,” the opinion by the panel said .
The panel also said the act “discriminates on its face based on transgender status” and that the ban was sweeping in nature, adding that “Plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their equal protection claim” but they did not reach a conclusion on if it violates Title IX.
Before the 2022 law was passed, transgender athletic participation was decided on a case-by-case basis by the Arizona Interscholastic Association, which oversees roughly 170,000 high school athletes in the state. Between 2017 and 2022, only 16 trans students were allowed to join teams consistent with their gender identity, and about half of them were trans girls.
“We are pleased with the Ninth Circuit’s ruling today, which held that the Arizona law likely violates the Equal Protection Clause and recognizes that a student’s transgender status is not an accurate proxy for athletic ability and competitive advantage”, said Rachel Berg, Staff Attorney at the National Center for Lesbian Rights, the group that helped bring the lawsuit, said in a written statement.
The case is still set to proceed to a trial, but now the students can continue to participate in sports that affirm their gender identity as the case moves forward.
Senate President Petersen, who sponsored the original legislation, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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