Lawsuit filed against Tenn. transgender law on behalf of Farragut high schooler - WVLT.TV

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - A federal lawsuit was filed Thursday by Farragut parents and friends, on behalf of a 14-year-old Farragut High School student, against Tennessee’s law that prevents transgender students from participating in sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

The advocates filed the lawsuit for the Farragut freshman, who would like to play golf on his high school boys’ golf team but would not have the possibility to do so due to the law, court documents said.

“The law the filing refers to is SB 228, which requires student participation to be based on ‘sex at the time of the student’s birth as indicated on the student’s original birth certificate’ regardless of their gender identity,” court documents said.

The filing said it would be “stigmatizing” for the student to be forced to be the only boy on the girls’ team, just as it would be for a cisgender (non-transgender) boy to be the only boy on the girls’ team.

Since SB 228 bars transgender students from playing sports, the lawsuit claims it deprives them of many benefits, including athletic training and competition with interscholastic sports and social, educational, physical, and emotional health benefits.

“I signed the bill to preserve women’s athletics and ensure fair competition,” Lee tweeted upon signing the bill. “This legislation responds to damaging federal policies that stand in opposition to the years of progress made under Title IX and I commend members of the General Assembly for their bipartisan work.”

The lawsuit said that the American Academy of Pediatrics condemned bills like SB 228 that deny transgender youth the ability to participate in sports teams matching their gender identity due to the benefit of school athletics.

“SB 228 contravenes prevailing standards adopted by athletic associations across the country and around the world,” the lawsuit said. “Neither the National Collegiate Athletic Association (“NCAA”) nor the International Olympic Committee has adopted any sort of categorical bar on the participation of transgender athletes, and many transgender athletes do in fact participate in such elite athletic competition consistent with their gender identity.”

The lawsuit also said that SB 228 was “a solution in search of a problem.” It continued and explained that the law claimed to have the purpose of protecting cisgender girls’ safety to participate in sports. Still, legislative debates could not identify an example of transgender students’ participation in interscholastic sports.

“Moreover, SB 228′s sweeping exclusion of all transgender students from participation on any athletic teams consistent with their gender identity, regardless of the circumstances, is disconnected from its own stated purposes of protecting the athletic opportunities and safety of cisgender girls,” the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit claims that the barring of transgender students from participating in sports violated the Fourteenth Amendment since it was based on sex and gender status.

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source: https://www.wvlt.tv/2021/11/05/lawsuit-filed-against-tenn-transgender-law-behalf-farragut-high-schooler/

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