Transgender student barred from tennis team sues Virginia school district

The 11-year-old’s name is not mentioned in the lawsuit. Instead, she is referred to by the pseudonym Janie Doe.

The lawsuit comes as states across the country have passed laws and guidelines in recent years that restrict the rights of transgender students, and lawsuits have been used to challenge those moves. Last month, a federal court blocked the U.S. Department of Education from enforcing new Title IX regulations aimed at protecting transgender students in schools, as multiple states filed lawsuits challenging the rules.

In Virginia, one of the most notable moves by Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin was to roll back protections for transgender students that had been put in place under former Gov. Ralph Northam (D). Youngkin’s new “model policy,” which required students to use school facilities that match their biological sex and made it harder for students to change their name or pronouns at school, became an immediate flashpoint in Virginia politics.

Questions immediately arose about whether the policy violated other existing protections, such as the Virginia Human Rights Act or the ruling in the lawsuit by Gavin Grimm, who sued the school board for banning him from the boys’ bathroom at his school because he is transgender.

The ACLU of Virginia filed two lawsuits in state court in February against the Virginia Department of Education on behalf of transgender students, alleging that the policy is discriminatory. Those cases are still pending.

One of the state lawsuits involves a Hanover County high school student and describes experiences and time frames that mirror those in the new federal lawsuit. The ACLU of Virginia declined to say whether the same student is involved in both the state and federal cases, because the students are named by pseudonyms in every lawsuit.

In the lawsuit filed July 3 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, the ACLU argues that Hanover County’s decision to exclude Janie from the girls’ tennis team was not in line with other organizational practices, such as those of the Virginia High School League, which for years has allowed transgender students to appeal to play on the team that matches their gender identity.

“School boards have a duty to protect every child’s right to a public education, but by bullying a transgender youth in their district, Hanover County Public Schools is denying our client the opportunities every public school student should have — and running afoul of the federal discrimination protections that Virginia schools are required by law to uphold,” Wyatt Rolla, senior transgender attorney at the ACLU of Virginia, said in a statement.

A spokesman for schools in Hanover County, a system in suburban Richmond with about 17,000 students, said “there will be a response in the lawsuit itself” and declined to answer direct questions about the lawsuit.

According to the complaint, the student first auditioned for her high school’s girls tennis team last summer, after six weeks of in-person classes and a week-long camp. She and her parents found out she had made the team through Schoology, an online tool the school system uses to give families updates about their children, the lawsuit says.

But in September, her family received a letter that the county school board wanted to consider whether the 11-year-old should be on the team. The school board said members had learned the student “was born male but now identifies as female” and requested “information to promote the consistent expression of your student as a female,” including medical documentation. The 11-year-old was banned from playing tennis until the board made a decision.

Her parents named CEO Robert May after receiving the letter. When he called back, he asked if the 11-year-old was born a “biological male,” adding that “that’s really the gist of it,” the lawsuit says.

In response to the school board’s request, her parents submitted letters from other parents on the team supporting her joining and a handwritten letter from the 11-year-old saying, “I’ve always been one of the girls.” They included letters from her medical team confirming that she had undergone a mental health assessment and received clinical treatment regarding her gender identity.

On Sept. 14, May wrote to the girl’s parents that the school board had unanimously decided not to allow the 11-year-old to participate on the girls’ tennis team, the lawsuit says. He wrote that the decision was made “in an effort to ensure fairness in the competition for all participants.”

The girl started playing tennis with a private team.

At a meeting in October, the school board began reviewing an extracurricular policy that would follow Youngkin’s model policy by requiring participation based on “biological sex rather than gender or gender identity.” During the meeting, May said board members were following “normal, established practice” by changing their policy to follow Youngkin’s guidelines. The new extracurricular policy was officially approved in November.

May referred questions from The Post about the lawsuit and school policy to the school district.

Across the state, some school districts, such as Fairfax County, rejected the governor’s model policy, while others adopted portions of the policy or adopted it entirely.

The lawsuit states that Janie was “ashamed that her participation in athletics with her peers was the focus of so much attention from powerful adults in charge of all of Hanover County’s public schools.”

A spokesperson for Hanover County Public Schools would not say how many students have been excluded from the desired sports team because of the after-school activities policy.

The Hanover County School Board recently considered a request related to locker room access and participation in extracurricular sports activities during a closed session on July 9, but no further details about what that discussion was about were on the agenda. Another meeting on the request is scheduled for Aug. 13, according to the school board calendar.