Judge throws out U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against California’s transgender school sports policy

A federal judge dismissed the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit against California’s policies allowing transgender athletes to compete on school sports teams that match their gender identity, reported the Los Angeles Times.

The Justice Department argued that the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation violated Title IX, the 1972 federal law prohibiting sex-based discrimination, by allowing sports eligibility based on gender identity instead of biological sex.  

U.S. District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela wrote that the Supreme Court had explained that states “may determine eligibility’ for school sports teams based on biological sex,” and “thus upheld the biological-sex eligibility rules before it without holding that Title IX requires every school to adopt the same rule.”

Valenzuela also wrote that the Supreme Court “declined to decide whether Title IX permits transgender girls to participate on girls’ and women’s teams.”

The Justice Department suit threatened to cut $44.3 billion in federal funding from the California Department of Education, if the state did not change its policies including transgender girls in girls’ sports teams. The Justice Department’s lawsuit was brought by Harmeet Dhillon, a conservative attorney from California, and Bill Essayli, a conservative lawmaker leading the U.S. Attorney’s office in Los Angeles. 

Trevor Norcross, the father of Lily Norcross, a transgender track athlete and student at Arroyo Grande High School whose participation in sports was cited in  the Justice Department’s lawsuit, told the Los Angeles Times that it is “time to get back to supporting and enjoying girls’ and women’s sports instead of trying to tear them down.”

This story was originally published by EdSource.