Judge rules Va. district can’t block transgender student from girls tennis team

A federal judge ruled last week that a Virginia school district cannot bar a transgender student from trying out for the girls tennis team, as the student’s case against the school board continues.

U.S. District Court Judge M. Hannah Lauck issued a preliminary injunction on the matter Friday, saying the 11-year-old plaintiff “established that the Board excluded her, on the basis of sex, from participating in an education program when it denied her application to try out for (and if selected, to participate on) her school’s girls’ tennis team.”

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Virginia filed the lawsuit on behalf of the student and her parents in July. The lawsuit alleged Hanover County’s school board discriminated against the student when it voted to bar the student from the girls tennis team.

The lawsuit does not identify the student and lists her as “Janie Doe.”

Lauck said preventing the student from joining the team “denies her the opportunity to play school tennis entirely or demands that she contravene her social transition in order to participate in school athletics.”

“Because Janie Doe faces a litany of harms ranging from medical regression, social isolation and stigma, financial and logistical burdens, and the dignitary harms of either ‘outing’ her as transgender or communicating that transgender students are not welcomed or encouraged to participate in school athletics at all, Janie Doe has made more than a clear showing that the discrimination has harmed her,” Lauck wrote.

The judge also wrote that the school board’s decision and policy on the topic “contravene the strong public interest in educational institutions being free of discrimination of all kinds, including on the basis of gender.”

The debate over transgender women’s and girls’ participation in sports has been a contentious issue. GOP lawmakers earlier this month sent a letter to the NCAA asking to ban transgender athletes from its women’s sports.

Wyatt Rolla, a senior attorney for transgender rights for the ACLU of Virginia, praised the ruling in a statement.

“At the heart of this case is an 11-year-old who loves tennis and just wants to try out with her friends for the team she already made last year,” Rolla said. “By singling out a transgender student in their district, the adults on the Hanover County School Board bullied Janie and violated nondiscrimination protections that are there to make sure public schools include all students.”

The Hill has reached out to Hanover County Public Schools for comment.