Federal court upholds ruling that stopped Arizona transgender sports law

A federal appellate court ruled Monday to uphold an Arizona district court’s ruling to allow two transgender girls to play on the girls’ sports team at their schools, barring an Arizona law that prohibits “students of the male sex,” including transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports.

The defendants Thomas Horne, Arizona state superintendent of public instruction, Laura Toenjes, superintendent of the Kyrene and Gregory school districts, Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and Arizona Speaker of the House of Representatives Ben Toma appealed the decision made by the district court, saying that the decision did not violate the equal protection clause under the 14th Amendment.

The defendants claimed that allowing transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports would be discriminatory to biological girls who would not have the same physical advantages as someone biologically male. They also stated that what actually causes harm to these girls is their gender dysphoria diagnosis, not the inability to play on a sports team that aligns with their gender identity. The court said it was just the opposite.

The two girls in question, whose names are not being released, are referred to in the court ruling as Jane Doe, 11, and Megan Roe, 15, both of whom have not undergone male puberty.

Both girls were diagnosed with gender dysphoria – where an individual’s gender identity does not align with the gender they were assigned at birth – at young ages and started on hormone blockers prior to the beginning of male puberty. They have also legally changed their names and genders on their passports.

“[A] transgender girl who receives hormone therapy will typically have the same levels of circulating estrogen and testosterone ... as other girls and significantly lower than boys who have begun pubertal development,” reads the federal court’s decision, citing medical research.

Both girls have played on sports’ teams and want to continue to do so, but are prohibited under the act. Doe attends Kyrene Aprende Middle School in Chandler and Roe attends Gregory School, a private school in Tucson. According to the ruling, both girls’ teammates and coaches have no objection to them playing on the girls’ teams.

The trial court found that “[t]ransgender girls who receive puberty-blocking medication do not have an athletic advantage over other girls because they do not undergo male puberty and do not experience the physiological changes caused by the increased production of testosterone associated with male puberty,” and the appellate court upheld that ruling.

The federal appellate court ruled that prohibiting these two girls from playing on sports teams that align with their gender identity based only on the fact that they are transgender is discrimination and violates the 14th Amendment.

The court ruled that prohibiting transgender individuals from playing on a team that aligns with their gender identity could be harmful and falls under an attempt to “cure” transgender individuals - something that is condemned by every major medical association.

However, this case did not look at the constitutionality of the Act as a whole, only at the specific situations of Doe and Roe in which the court ruled that since they have not had any signs of entering into male puberty or the increased testosterone levels that tend to give boys and men an athletic advantage, they should be allowed to participate in girls’ sports teams.

Petersen said that the legislature will be appealing the case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Female athletes deserve equal opportunities in sporting events, which will not happen so long as males are allowed to compete against them,” Petersen said. “Science is clear that male athletes have many inherent physical advantages over females, including greater size, stronger muscles, and larger bone structure. By allowing males to compete against females, we're essentially subjecting young girls to greater risk of injury, as well as stripping them of athletic opportunities their female predecessors have long fought for.”