9th Circuit Allows Arizona Trans Athletes to Play on Girls’ Teams
issued the injunction last month to block the state from enforcing its prohibitions on transgender females who seek to compete on female-designated sports teams while a lawsuit challenging those restrictions moves forward.Under the law, known as the Save Women’s Sports Act, transgender females are prohibited from competing on sex-segregated sports teams that align with their gender identity, and cisgender students who believe they lost out on athletic opportunities due to the presence of a transgender athlete can sue for damages.The law also allows for female athletes — both transgender and cisgender, particularly if a cisgender athlete does not conform to traditional stereotypes of femininity — to be subjected to genetic testing to “prove” their gender identity matches assigned sex at birth.But Zipps found that the law is “overly broad” and may be unconstitutional, violating not only female athletes’ right to equal protection, but Title IX, the federal law that bars discrimination based on sex in educational settings.
As such, allowing the policy to be enforced before a final decision on the law’s constitutionality was reached would “irreparably harm” the transgender plaintiffs.Zipps also found that there was not sufficient evidence to prove that pre-pubertal athletes assigned male at birth hold a significant physiological or competitive advantage over cisgender females, as they have not yet developed secondary sex characteristics.
