There is no real choice between giving her a decision between playing for kids’ teams or not, according to Judge Toby Heytens.”
“The defendants may reasonably hope that B.P.J. will countermand her social change, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her institutions, teachers, and mentors for nearly half her life by introducing herself to colleagues, mentors, and perhaps competitors as a child,” Heytens wrote.
The court on Tuesday ruled in favor of the West Virginia section of the American Civil Liberties Union and the LGBTQ rights organization Lambda Legal, which filed a complaint in 2021 against the state and county board of education and their supervisors as plaintiffs. Republican Gov. A act was already being signed into law by Jim Justice earlier that month.
This is a significant victory for transgender West Virginians and the right of all children to play as they are, according to ACLU West Virginia lawyer Joshua Block in a speech.
The judge noted that she has been formally living as a child for more than five decades and has changed her name, and that the state of West Virginia has given her a birth certificate listing her as a woman. In finding that the law violates Title IX when applied to the child. She is prescribed progesterone hormone therapy as well as puberty-busting treatment, according to the jury. Starting in secondary school, she has participated only on female’s sports teams.
“B.P.J. has demonstrated that applying the work to her would cure her worse than people to whom she is also situated, prevent her from having any significant sport opportunities, and do so on the foundation of sex. That is all Title IX requires,” Heytens wrote.
West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, a Republican, said he was “deeply disappointed” in the decision.
“I may continue to fight to protect Title IX. We must continue to work to protect women’s athletics, so that ladies have a really good playing area and women’s safety are ensured,” the Attorney General continued. “We are aware that the law is sound and will use every resource we have to justify it.”
In recent years, sports participation has been one of the major fronts in legal and legislative battles involving the position of transgender people in the U.S. common career. Most Republican-controlled states have passed regulations on participation, as well as restrictions on gender-affirming health treatment for adolescents. Some restrictions apply to the types of locker rooms and bathrooms that trans people can use, especially in schools.
West Virginia is one of at least 24 states that prohibit trans women and girls from competing in particular female or male sporting events.
The restrictions are in consequence in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming.
In addition to West Virginia, magistrates have temporarily put protection of the restrictions on hold in Arizona, Idaho, and Utah. However, the 2nd Circuit reintroduced a challenge to Connecticut’s policy, which allows transgender girls to compete in girls’ sports last year, and sent it back to a lower court without ruling on its merits.
Later this month, restrictions will be implemented in Ohio.
The Biden administration had intended to introduce a new national Title IX law, which addresses both school sexual assault and transgender athletes and prohibits discrimination based on gender in training. The division made the decision to divide them into separate rules earlier this year, but the athletics concept is still undetermined.
John Raby, The Associated Press
by Canadian Press
