Judge largely dismisses lawsuit over transgender runner at SoCal high school

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CN) — A federal judge on Wednesday dismissed most of the claims two Southern California high school students and the Save Girls’ Sports advocacy group brought against the Riverside County Unified School District over the participation of a transgender girl on their school’s cross-country team.

U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes, a Joe Biden appointee, agreed with the school district that the students had failed to state claims for violations of Title IX — the civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination at schools that receive federal funding — in so far as these claims are based on a failure to provide the two girls with effective accommodation to participate in athletics or on unequal treatment.

“There are simply not enough facts alleged in the complaint to suggest that the participation of a single transgender athlete at Martin Luther King, or anything else about the operation of AB 1266 has affected the substantial proportionality of participation opportunities available for female athletes at Martin Luther King High School or in the state,” the judge said. “As such, plaintiffs have failed to state an equal accommodation claim.”

California Assembly Bill 1266 states in part that students must be permitted to participate in sex-segregated school programs and activities, including athletic teams and competitions, consistent with their gender identity and irrespective of the gender listed on their records.

With respect to the students’ unequal treatment argument, the judge said that they had made no attempt to explain how a Title IX equal treatment claim applies to them, because such a claim needs to analyze benefits available to sex-segregated teams, and the appropriate comparison is between male and female.

The judge allowed the students to amend those claims.

Sykes rejected the school district’s bid to dismiss the Title IX claim based on intentional discrimination because, she said, the school didn’t explain why the transgender girl received individual coaching, as the two students claim, while the other girls didn’t. At this early stage of the litigation, the judge said, that claim could proceed.

But while the judge said the students had standing to proceed, she said they could only seek monetary damages and not an injunction against the school, because the transgender girl who prompted their lawsuit graduated earlier this year.

The judge also dismissed the claims against California Attorney General Rob Bonta and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond with leave to amend.

Attorneys for the plaintiffs and the school district didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

In their complaint, the two students argue that one of them, referred to only by her initials T.S., lost her place on the school’s Varsity Top 7 list last year to the transgender girl, who had transferred to the school a few months earlier. The list determines who gets to participate in the prestigious Mt. San Antonio College cross-country invitational,

They further argue that the transgender athlete had missed the bulk of required practices and that when she attended, she ran separately from the other students with the school’s athletic director.

“T.S. was ousted from her position on the girls’ varsity cross-country team to make room for a biological male athlete who did not consistently attend practices and failed to satisfy many of the team’s varsity eligibility qualifications,” the students claim. “As a result, T.S. missed the opportunity to compete at a high-profile meet, losing the right to compete on the varsity level and missing the opportunity to be exposed with the elite competitors for purposes of college recruitment and recognition.”

The lawsuit has attracted the attention of the Trump administration, which has targeted so-called gender ideology and seeks to rescind funding from schools and colleges that allow transgender girls to participate on girls’ athletic teams.

The U.S. attorney in Los Angeles earlier this year filed a statement of interest in the lawsuit, saying that the “presence of a biological male-transgender female competing on a girls’ cross-country team upsets the level playing field, interfering with the equal opportunity for females to fully participate in and enjoy the educational benefits of athletics.”

The Trump administration sued the California Department of Education in July over state policies that allow transgender girls to participate on women’s high school sports teams.

The U.S. Department of Justice said in the complaint filed in Santa Ana, California, that those policies discriminate against girls in interscholastic athletics by mandating that schools allow what it referred to as “boys” to compete in girls’ sports.

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