SCOTUS Ruling Means Transgender Girls Can Compete: Connecticut AG

DANBURY, CT — The state attorney general has urged the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights to withdraw its "Letter of Impending Enforcement" against the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference.

In 2013, the CIAC adopted a policy that transgender girls can participate in high school sports as girls. In May, the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights ruled that the CIAC's policy violates the civil rights of female athletes. The ruling came in response to a complaint filed last year by several female track athletes arguing that two transgender runners who were identified as male at birth had an unfair physical advantage.

In its May 15 Letter, the federal office stated that in adhering to that policy, that CIAC and the school districts in Glastonbury, Bloomfield, Hartford, Cromwell, Canton, and Danbury violated Title IX. That federal civil rights law guarantees equal education opportunities for women, including in athletics.

The office said it will "either initiate administrative proceedings to suspend, terminate, or refuse to grant or continue and defer financial assistance" to the CIAC and those districts or refer the cases to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong is now citing the recent Supreme Court decision, Bostock v. Clayton County to defend the CIAC's policy. That landmark ruling decided that the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibiting sex discrimination in the workplace protects LGBTQ employees from being fired because of their sexual orientation.

"The letter’s claims are simply wrong. Title IX does not bar transgender high school girls from competing in girls' track events. Under Connecticut law and federal law, transgender girls are girls," Tong states in a letter to the Department of Education. "Please know that we will strongly oppose, in any forum, any attempt to strip Connecticut school districts of funding merely because they are following a policy that aligns with the law."

Attorney General Tong joined 19 other attorneys general in filing an amicus brief in Bostock v. Clayton County, arguing that federal prohibitions against sex discrimination must also extend to discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.