Three Connecticut girls who have run high school track have had enough of transgenders competing against them and have now filed a federal discrimination complaint saying a statewide policy on transgender athletes has cost them top finishes in races and possibly college scholarships.
The girls want an investigation into the policy that allows transgender athletes to compete in sports according to the gender with which they identify.
“Girls deserve to compete on a level playing field,” Christiana Holcomb, legal counsel for Alliance Defending Freedom, said. “Women fought long and hard to earn the equal athletic opportunities that Title IX provides. Allowing boys to compete in girls’ sports reverses nearly 50 years of advances for women under this law. We shouldn’t force these young women to be spectators in their own sports.”
The complaint also cites the federal Title IX rules aimed at equal rights in sports for female athletes.
The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference says its policy follows a state anti-discrimination law requiring students to be treated as the gender with which they identify. That ultimately means athletes can compete according to their expressed gender identity and not by the sex assigned at birth.
One of the athletes who filed the complaint is Selina Soule, of Glastonbury High School, and she expressed her anger to the The Associated Press earlier this year after a transgender a 55-meter dash she competed in.
“We all know the outcome of the race before it even starts; it’s demoralizing,” she said. “I fully support and am happy for these athletes for being true to themselves. They should have the right to express themselves in school, but athletics have always had extra rules to keep the competition fair.”
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Two transgender female athletes, Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood, have both won state titles in various events and they were also named in the suit.
Yearwood’s father, Rashaan, told the Courant, “As a human being — not as Andraya’s father — it’s disappointing that, in 2019, we’re still debating who gets to participate and who doesn’t.” He added, “You would hope we’d gotten to a place in 300-plus years as a country that we’re not debating who should be included, and who should not be. There is no place for exclusion.”
(ESPN)
