The Biden administration has withdrawn federal support from a lawsuit filed by the families of three Connecticut high school girls to block transgender athletes from competing in high school girls sports.
“The Justice Department and the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights withdrew their support for the case ahead of a hearing [last week] on a motion to dismiss the lawsuit,” reports the Associated Press. Support for the lawsuit against the transgender athletes had come from the previous administration.
The case drew national attention in 2020 as other states debated laws to restrict transgender athletes’ participation in school sports. Reports the AP, 17 states are now considering such legislation, with Idaho having already passing theirs into law and Mississippi close on their heels.
In Connecticut, the families of three high school track team runners filed a federal lawsuit last February to exclude transgender female athletes from participating in girls sports — despite a state law that requires all students to be treated according to the gender they identify with.
A month later, former US Attorney General Barr weighed in arguing against the state’s policy to follow this law. And in late May 2020 the US Dept. of Education’s civil rights office sent a 45-page letter to the state threatening to withhold federal funding unless Connecticut schools went against state law and barred transgender girls from participating in girls sports.
That fall, at the start of the current school year, Connecticut Attorney General William Tong fired back at the Trump administration, stating, “Transgender girls are girls, full stop. The Office of the Attorney General will continue to defend every Connecticut resident, including our transgender residents, against discrimination, hate and bigotry.”
Reports the AP, “US Attorney for the District of Connecticut John Durham wrote [last week] that the Justice Department had ‘reconsidered the matter.'”
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