A federal court has thrown out a lawsuit challenging Florida’s Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, handing a victory to Gov. Ron DeSantis and a defeat to transgender athletes seeking to compete on female teams based on gender identity.
U.S. District Court Judge Roy K. Altman dismissed the case filed on behalf of D.N., a transgender volleyball player, seeking to overturn the 2021 law that requires student-athletes in public high schools and colleges to compete based on their birth sex, not gender identity.
“Today, we were asked whether a law that separates public-school sports teams by biological sex violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” said Judge Altman, a Trump appointee, in the 39-page opinion. ”We find that it does not.”
Attorneys for D.N., who attends high school in Broward County, argued that the law known as Senate Bill 1028 discriminated against transgender students, but Judge Altman found that “not all gender-based classifications violate the Equal Protection Clause.”
“In our case, SB 1028’s gender-based classifications are rooted in real differences between the sexes — not stereotypes,” he said in the Monday ruling. “In requiring schools to designate sports-team memberships on the basis of biological sex, the statute adopts the uncontroversial proposition that most men and women do have different (and innate) physical attributes.”
The decision comes with transgender rights groups waging state-by-state legal battles against laws barring male-born athletes from competing on female scholastic teams based on gender identity, a fight that may ultimately reach the Supreme Court.
Earlier this year, a federal court temporarily blocked West Virginia’s law, known as HB 3293, allowing middle school student Becky Pepper-Jackson to compete on the girls’ track-and-field and cross-country teams. The state is challenging the ruling.
Those cheering the ruling included the Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of former female track athlete Selina Soule.
“States like Florida have an interest in protecting women and girls as men continue to take medals, podium spots, and other opportunities away from women in female sports,” ADF senior counsel Christiana Kiefer said. “Biological differences matter. As more women lose opportunities to men with natural physical advantages, lawmakers are acting to preserve equal opportunities and common sense.”
The lawsuit was filed in June 2021 by attorneys with the Human Rights Campaign Fund and Arnold & Porter, a New York City law firm, but the case was placed on hold pending a ruling on a Florida school district policy barring transgender students from using bathrooms based on gender identity.
The appeals court upheld the St. Johns County School Board policy, and Judge Altman reopened the SB 1028 challenge in January.
The lawsuit filed by D.N. accused Florida officials of being “motivated by discriminatory animus,” but Judge Altman said the plaintiffs failed to make the case.
“The law, after all, doesn’t discriminate against transgender students,” Judge Altman said. “In addition to allowing transgender athletes of both sexes to play on coed (or mixed) teams, the law explicitly allows transgender boys to try out and play for boys’ sports teams. If the law had intended to discriminate against transgender student-athletes, in other words, it’s done a very poor job of it.”
Twenty-three states have passed laws barring male-born athletes who identify as female from participating in female scholastic sports.
• Valerie Richardson can be reached at vrichardson@washingtontimes.com.
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