TUCSON, Ariz. — A federal judge temporarily blocked Arizona from enforcing a law barring transgender girls from playing on girls’ school sports teams Thursday.
The Judge in Tucson granted a precautionary measure to allow prosecution of a lawsuit filed on behalf of two transgender girls against the state’s “Save Women’s Sports Act,” which passed the Republican-controlled Legislature last year.
The lawsuit argues that the law violates federal Title IX, the law that prohibits sex discrimination in schools that receive federal funds, and the equal protection clause of the United States Constitution.
Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne, a defendant in the case, said the decision will be appealed.
“This will ultimately be decided by the United States Supreme Court, ruling in our favor,” Horne said in a statement.
Arizona is one of several states and some school districts that have passed laws limiting access to school sports teams or other facilities to students based on the sex they were assigned at birth rather than their gender identity.
The Arizona plaintiffs include a 15-year-old volleyball player and an 11-year-old girl who wants to play girls’ soccer, basketball and cross country. In court documents, Jane Doe and Megan Roe have been named.
The parents of both children said they were pleased with the court’s decision.
“We are relieved that the judge saw past the misconceptions and harmful rhetoric used to demonize transgender girls. Our daughter looks forward to making new friends and playing the sports she loves,” Jane Doe’s parents said in a statement from the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which is helping to represent them.
Arizona officials have said the law is passed by the federal government because it is aimed at equity.
“Title IX was intended to give girls equal opportunities to play sports. When a biological boy plays in a girls’ sport, he puts them at a disadvantage,” Horne told The Associated Press when the lawsuit was filed. submitted in April. “There’s been a lot of news about girls who worked hard to excel in their sports, found they couldn’t when they had to compete against biological boys, and were devastated by it.”
However, in issuing the preliminary injunction, Judge Jennifer G. Zipps said there was no evidence that allowing boys, who were prescribed puberty blockers for gender dysphoria, to play on girls’ teams would have an athletic advantage or prove a safety risk to other players.
Rather, the judge said the children “will suffer severe and irreparable mental, physical, and emotional harm if the Act is applied to them because they cannot play on children’s sports teams,” which would be “painful and humiliating.”
“There is a consensus among medical organizations that gender identity is innate and cannot be changed through psychological or medical treatment,” the ruling said.
“Plaintiffs’ mental health depends on living like girls in all aspects of their lives,” the judge wrote.
LGBTQ rights advocates say bills like the one passed in Arizona and hundreds more across the US are anti-transgender attacks disguised as child protection and use transgender people as political pawns to galvanize Republican voters ahead of an election year.
Courts have blocked some measures in several states, including last week in Wisconsin.
