A defiant statement from Alliance Defending Freedom, a religious liberty law firm, comes after the nation’s highest court allowed a 12-year-old male to continue competing on his middle school's girls' sports teams in West Virginia while a lawsuit over a state ban continues.
A boy who goes by "Becky" participates on the girls' track and cross-country teams. He sued to stop a state law, the Save Women's Sports Act, which became law in 2021.
"I still get to play with my friends and teammates on the track team," the 12-year-old, represented by the ACLU, said in a statement. "That's all I want to do, be with my friends and be the girl that I am."
"We're certainly disappointed,” says ADF attorney Christiana Kiefer, “that the Supreme Court chose not to lift the hold that was placed on West Virginia's women's sports law by the 4th Circuit, without any analysis or review of the record. But the court's decision doesn't end this case.”
ADF jumped in the legal battle over transgender athletes during the Trump administration, when four female runners sued in Connecticut to stop two male athletes from competing against them in track-and-field races.
Regarding the determined female plaintiffs, Kiefer tells AFN the young women have received their “fair share of backlash” for fighting the transgender agenda but they have also enjoyed support from around the country and from other countries, too.
“ADF is committed to protecting female athletes,” the ADF attorney says, “through continuing to litigate this case in the court of appeals and other cases across the country as well."
On the same day of the Supreme Court ruling, which came down April 6, the Biden administration announced new transgender-defending Title IX rules. That coming rule vows to bar public schools from receiving vital federal funding if they ban biological males from participating in female-only sports.
A public comment period of 30 days is now ticking down before it becomes a federal rule but ADF attorney Matt Sharp tells AFN he predicts the 20 states with anti-transgender sports laws will sue.
"The Obama administration tried to do a similar thing with its 'dear colleague' letter. And it treated it as having the force of law,” he recalls. “And we saw a group of almost two dozen states challenge that and get it struck down."
