Challenge to transgender athletic policy in Connecticut fails

Four female plaintiffs have sued the State of Connecticut for gender discrimination under Title IX, claiming that the state has violated their rights in allowing transgender women to compete with them in high school sports. They want the state to rewrite the record books to only include athletes with the same gender as that listed on their birth certificates. Interesting case, but the case is dismissed for lack of standing. The Court of Appeals never reaches the merits.

The case is Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools, issued on December 16. Connecticut has a policy that allows high school students to complete on gender-specific athletic teams consistent with their gender identity. So that if an athlete is identified as a male on his birth certificate but identifies as a female, then that athlete can complete as a female in sports competitions. Plaintiffs' theory is that this policy is unfair and prevents them and other girls from certain athletic victories, athletic scholarships and even future employment. 

Plaintiffs seek injunctive relief that would require the Association to rewrite the record books to discount the victories attained by the transgender females. Plaintiffs claim that, without this injunction, they would be deprived of their "chance to be champions." We have a problem, though. Plaintiffs regularly competed in high school athletic events and were in fact champions, finishing first in various events, even when competing against transgender athletes. In addition, there is no proper legal framework to invalidate or alter the record books like this when the students competed under the applicable rules. All that plaintiffs would get from this case is the "physic satisfaction" of having a retroactive victory. The federal courts don't provide that kind of relief. While plaintiffs further claim that the purported Title IX violations impeded their future employment prospects because they are more likely to find a good job with a stellar athletic record, "the records that Plaintiffs want re-written already show their participation and impressive achievements in high school athletics." And the Court notes that we can only speculate how employers would evaluate plaintiffs' job applications were the Court to rewrite their athletic accomplishments. 

The decision goes on to discuss whether plaintiffs can recover damages instead of injunctive relief from this case. The short answer from the Court of Appeals (Chin, Carney and Robinson) is no, and I will discuss that in a future blog post. 

In a lengthy footnote, Judge Chin notes that "controversies over athletics records are not uncommon." He then summarizes the recent controversy over whether Aaron Judge's 62 home runs in 2022 for the Yankees makes him the true home run champion since all the others who have exceeded that number were accused of using steroids. This footnote is not really necessary, but I notice that judges like to drop footnotes and make reference to other things of interest when they are writing their opinions.