Utah Ban On Trans Youth Playing In Girls’ Sports Blocked By Judge
A Utah judge blocked a law banning transgender youth from participating in girls' athletics, months after the state's conservative political base joined the growing trend.
According to Court House News, three teenage plaintiffs filed a lawsuit against Utah High School Activities Association, two school districts, and their superintendents, claiming the law will cause irreparable harm. Third Judicial District Court Judge Keith Kelly granted their request for a preliminary injunction, finding "the ban singles out transgender girls and categorically bars them from competing on girls’ sports teams.”
He added: “At the same time, other girls are free to compete. This is plainly unfavorable treatment."
A federal judge in Idaho blocked that state's ban, finding, “Like women generally, women who are transgender have historically been discriminated against, not favored.”
Judge Kelly found trans girls do not have many opportunities to play school sports. Under the Utah ban, they would have no opportunity to play at all. Excluding transgender girls from girls’ teams does not promote equality of athletic opportunity between boys and girls, he said.
The defendants argued that there is no disparate treatment because “biological boys” are being “singled out” by the ban. But Kelly wrote it is clear that transgender girls were “singled out for treatment different from that to which other identifiable groups were made subject.”
Federal courts have repeatedly held transgender status – even if considered as a classification separate and apart from sex – requires heightened scrutiny under the Equal Protection Clause. Federal courts have also determined that heightened scrutiny applies to blanket exclusions of transgender girls from competing on girls’ teams, and Kelly found Utah law requires the same scrutiny in this state court case.
He also wrote that there is evidence that the plaintiffs face irreparable harm due to violations of their rights under Utah’s uniform operation of law clause, facing social ostracization and subsequent mental and physical harm if they cannot play on team sports.
Utah has long permitted a transgender person to petition a state court for a legal gender marker change. The Utah Supreme Court has held a person has a common-law right to change their personal legal status, and any resident requesting a name change or sex change approved by a Utah court can file with the state registrar to change their birth certificate.
In March 2022, Republican lawmakers in Utah overrode a veto by Governor Spencer Cox, who drew national headlines for bucking his party’s increasingly sharp rhetoric against transgender women competing in women's sports. The Republican said in a letter explaining his veto that there are only four transgender athletes in Utah – out of approximately 75,000 students who participate in high school athletics – and their exclusion from sports could further exacerbate feelings of isolation and otherness.
“There seems to be a belief that any biologically born male could simply say he was transgender and begin participating in women’s sports,” Cox wrote. “This is incorrect. For many years now, the UHSAA has had in place a rule that only allows male-to-female transgender participation in women’s sports after a full year of difficult transition hormone therapy and in consultation with a health care professional.”
Utah became the 11th state to pass a law forbidding transgender youth from competing in women’s sports. Advocates for the bill contend allowing people who were born male to compete in women sports will destroy female athletics due to natural male advantages in most athletic categories, particularly as it relates to strength and speed. The Utah Athletic Association, which declined to comment on Friday's ruling, came out against the bill and said it lacks funds to enforce the measure and to fight it in court should the parents of transgender youth sue.
Trans youth are particularly vulnerable to mental health issues and suicide, something Cox noted in his veto message. “I want them to live,” he wrote.
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