by WorldTribune Staff, November 9, 2023
A federal judge threw out a lawsuit which challenged Florida’s law prohibiting biological males from competing in women’s sports.
U.S. District Court Judge Roy K. Altman dismissed the case filed on behalf of D.N., a transgender volleyball player. The lawsuit sought to overturn the 2021 Fairness in Women’s Sports Act that requires student-athletes in Florida’s public high schools and colleges to compete based on their birth sex, not gender identity.
“Today, we were asked whether a law that separates public-school sports teams by biological sex violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” said Judge Altman, a Trump appointee, in the 39-page opinion. ”We find that it does not.”
Attorneys for D.N., a student at a high school in Broward County, argued that the law known as Senate Bill 1028 discriminated against transgender students, but Judge Altman found that “not all gender-based classifications violate the Equal Protection Clause.”
“In our case, SB 1028’s gender-based classifications are rooted in real differences between the sexes — not stereotypes,” the judge said in the Monday ruling. “In requiring schools to designate sports-team memberships on the basis of biological sex, the statute adopts the uncontroversial proposition that most men and women do have different (and innate) physical attributes.”
The Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of former female track athlete Selina Soule, applauded the ruling:
“States like Florida have an interest in protecting women and girls as men continue to take medals, podium spots, and other opportunities away from women in female sports,” ADF senior counsel Christiana Kiefer said. “Biological differences matter. As more women lose opportunities to men with natural physical advantages, lawmakers are acting to preserve equal opportunities and common sense.”
The lawsuit filed by D.N. accused Florida officials of being “motivated by discriminatory animus,” but Judge Altman said the plaintiffs failed to make the case.
“The law, after all, doesn’t discriminate against transgender students,” Judge Altman said. “In addition to allowing transgender athletes of both sexes to play on coed (or mixed) teams, the law explicitly allows transgender boys to try out and play for boys’ sports teams. If the law had intended to discriminate against transgender student-athletes, in other words, it’s done a very poor job of it.”
Twenty-three states have passed laws prohibiting male-born athletes who identify as female from participating in female scholastic sports.
Please Support Real Journalism
Judge throws out trans teen’s lawsuit against Florida women in sports law added by Editor Two on
View all posts by Editor Two →