(LifeSiteNews) – The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has opted to rehear a lawsuit against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) by a group of female athletes challenging the body’s decision to force them to compete against biological males who claim to be “trans women.”
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) is suing CIAC on behalf of runners Selina Soule, Alana Smith, and Chelsea Mitchell. CIAC’s official handbook says the conference “shall defer to the determination of the student and his or her local school regarding gender identification,” without any conditions pertaining to physical transitions or testosterone levels. This has led to biologically male competitors consistently outperforming actual females and depriving them of numerous opportunities, according to the lawsuit.
“I’ve lost four women’s state championship titles, two all-New England awards, and numerous other spots on the podium to male runners,” Mitchell has argued. “I was bumped to third place in the 55-meter dash in 2019, behind two male runners. With every loss, it gets harder and harder to try again.”
“But besides the psychological toll of experiencing unfair losses over and over, the CIAC’s policy has more tangible harms for women,” she explained. “It robs girls of the chance to race in front of college scouts who show up for elite meets, and to compete for the scholarships and opportunities that come with college recruitment. I’ll never know how my own college recruitment was impacted by losing those four state championship titles to a male. When colleges looked at my record, they didn’t see the fastest girl in Connecticut. They saw a second- or third-place runner.”
In December, a three-judge panel of the 2nd Circuit ruled against the girls, upholding a prior decision to dismiss the case on the grounds that they had allegedly failed to adequately demonstrate both “injury” and their entitlement to compensatory damages.
But on February 13, the court announced that a majority of its active judges have voted for the case to be reheard by the full court, Catholic News Agency reports. A date for the new proceedings will be announced later.
“We’re pleased the 2nd Circuit has decided to rehear this important case, and we urge the court to protect women’s athletic opportunities,” ADF Senior Counsel Christiana Kiefer responded. “Eighteen states have enacted laws that protect women and girls from having to compete against males, and polls show that a majority of Americans agree that the competition is no longer fair when males are permitted to compete in women’s sports. Every woman deserves the respect and dignity that comes with having an equal opportunity to excel and win in athletics, and ADF remains committed to protecting the future of women’s sports.”
Mandatory inclusion of gender-confused individuals (or people who merely claim to be the opposite gender) in opposite-sex sports is billed as a matter of sensitivity and respect for perceived “gender identity.” But critics argue that indulging transgender athletes in this way undermines the original rational basis for having sex-specific athletics in the first place, thereby depriving female athletes of recognition and professional or academic opportunities. Scientific research affirms that physiology gives males distinct athletic advantages that cannot be fully negated by hormone suppression.
In a 2019 paper published by the Journal of Medical Ethics, New Zealand researchers found that “healthy young men [do] not lose significant muscle mass (or power) when their circulating testosterone levels were reduced to (below International Olympic Committee guidelines) for 20 weeks,” and “indirect effects of testosterone” on factors such as bone structure, lung volume, and heart size “will not be altered by hormone therapy”; therefore, “the advantage to transwomen [biological men] afforded by the [International Olympic Committee] guidelines is an intolerable unfairness.”
Conservatives also argue argue that forcing women and girls to share intimate facilities such as showers and lockers with men and boys violates their privacy, subjects them to needless emotional stress, and gives potential male predators a viable pretext to enter female bathrooms or lockers by simply claiming transgender status, regardless of whether they are sincerely dysphoric.
In recent years, numerous states have enacted policies banning public institutions from forcing women and girls to share intimate facilities or sex-specific athletic programs with males.