HARTFORD, Conn. — The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City upheld the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference’s transgender policy Friday after attorneys for cisgender girls who filed a lawsuit appealed to the court to change the records and results of track races in which the transgender female runners had participated.
The court ruled that claims that the cisgender girls were denied opportunities were moot and unfounded, citing that on numerous occasions, the cisgender girls had beaten the transgender girls.
“Today’s ruling is a critical victory for fairness, equality, and inclusion” Joshua Block, senior attorney for the ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project, said in a statement. “The court rejected the baseless zero-sum arguments presented by the opposition to this policy and ultimately found transgender girls have as much a right to play as cisgender girls under Title IX. This critical victory strikes at the heart of political attacks against transgender youth while helping ensure every young person has the right to play.”
Roger Brooks, a lawyer for the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom who represents Chelsea Mitchell of Canton, Selina Soule of Glastonbury, and Alanna Smith and Ashley Nicoletti of Danbury, made arguments before a panel of judges at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in September, requesting the records and results be changed. If successful, the ADF lawyers would have gone back to the lower court to demonstrate that the policy violated Title IX.
The athletes initially sued the CIAC and local schools over the organization’s policy allowing transgender female athletes to compete against cisgender females.
Last April, U.S. District Court Judge Robert Chatigny dismissed the lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs on procedural grounds. The lawsuit was filed in federal court and sought to halt transgender female athletes Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood from participating in girls high school sports in Connecticut.
All the athletes involved in the case have graduated high school.
Miller, Mitchell and Yearwood competed against each other in indoor and outdoor track from 2018-2020 and Mitchell and Miller had a number of high-stakes races against each other.
Miller, of Bloomfield, won State Open outdoor track titles in the 200 meters in 2018 and 2019 and in the 100 meters in 2018. Mitchell, of Canton, won the 2019 State Open 100-meter title after Miller false-started and was disqualified. In 2019, Miller beat Mitchell for the Class S outdoor titles in the 100 and 200. In 2020, at the State Open indoor championships, Mitchell beat Miller (who finished third) for the 55-meter title after Miller beat Mitchell for the Class S 55-meter championship the previous week.
“The CIAC was confident in its inclusionary policies from the onset of this case,” CIAC Executive Director Dr. Glenn Lungarini said in a statement on Friday. “The CIAC is pleased with the decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals to uphold the lower court’s dismissal.”
