2022—In ruling (in Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools) against four female athletes in Connecticut who alleged that a policy that allowed boys who identified as girls to compete against them in track events violated Title IX, a Second Circuit panel not only adopts the rhetoric of transgender ideology but even imputes that rhetoric to the plaintiffs. Nowhere in its opinion does the panel state or acknowledge that the athletes whose participation the plaintiffs complain of are males. On the contrary, it asserts that Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller are “both girls who are transgender.” Surely lots of Americans would think that “girls who are transgender” are girls who identify as male.
The panel even contends that plaintiffs “alleged that the Policy forced them to compete against female athletes who are transgender.” But plaintiffs’ complaint clearly identifies Yearwood and Miller as “male athlete[s],” and it challenges the policy that “is permitting boys who are male in every biological respect to compete in girls’ athletic competitions if they claim a female gender identify.” The panel also uses trans-speak when it describes the plaintiffs as “four female athletes who are cisgender.”
One day short of a year later, the en banc Second Circuit will reject the panel’s conclusion that the plaintiffs lack standing and will remand the case to the district court for further action.