Judge dismisses Justice Department lawsuit challenging California transgender sports policies

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Set us as preferred A federal judge this week threw out the U.S.Justice Department’s lawsuit challenging California policies that allow transgender athletes to compete on school sports teams that match their gender identity.The Justice Department alleged that the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation were in violation of Title IX, a 1972 federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding.

It argued the law requires that sports eligibility and facilities access be based on biological sex, not gender identity.But U.S.District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela found that Title IX does no such thing — and that a recent U.S.

Supreme Court ruling allowing other states to apply such eligibility standards only reinforced her conclusion.Valenzuela, an appointee of President Biden, wrote that the Supreme Court had “explained that Title IX’s regulations ‘expressly permit schools’ to maintain separate sex-based teams and ultimately held that States ‘may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females’ and ‘may determine eligibility’ for those teams based on biological sex” — and “thus upheld the biological-sex eligibility rules before it without holding that Title IX requires every school to adopt the same rule.” Politics Several California teenagers have found themselves at the center of an intense national debate around transgender kids participating in school sports.They aren’t backing down.Valenzuela wrote that the Supreme Court “declined to decide whether Title IX permits transgender girls to participate on girls’ and women’s teams,” and “expressly stated” that nothing in its opinion addressed that “distinct question.”Valenzuela wrote that she, likewise, did not need to de...