INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — A lawsuit challenging an Indiana law that prohibits transgender female students from participating in girls’ school sports was dropped Wednesday just weeks before being heard by a federal appeals court.
An Indianapolis federal judge ruled against the law in August and granted a preliminary injunction allowing a 10-year-old transgender girl to join her school’s all-female softball team in the Indianapolis Public Schools District.
But the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which represented the girl, and the state attorney general’s office on Wednesday filed court documents to dismiss the lawsuit because the girl had recently enrolled in a school in charter not managed by the district.
“The parties acknowledge that, as this matter is now moot and must be dismissed, the preliminary injunction of the Court, upon dismissal of this action, shall be vacated and of no effect,” the court filing said.
There is an ongoing national debate about the rights of transgender athletes. More than a dozen states have passed laws banning or restricting their participation in sports based on arguments that they have an unfair competitive advantage.
Earlier this month, a federal judge ruled that West Virginia can uphold its ban on transgender athletes competing in women’s school sports. A federal appeals court in New York, however, rejected a challenge to Connecticut’s policy allowing transgender girls to participate in women’s sports.
The ACLU said it stands by its arguments that the Indiana law violates federal Title IX protections against sex discrimination in education programs or activities — and indicated it may file future legal challenges on behalf of other transgender students.
“We have requested the dismissal of our case on behalf of a trans athlete at IPS Schools solely due to individual circumstances regarding our client’s recent transfer,” the ACLU said in a statement.
U.S. District Judge Jane Magnus-Stinson had ruled the fifth-year girl had “a strong likelihood” of prevailing in arguments that Indiana law violated federal Title IX protections. The Chicago federal appeals court was scheduled to hear arguments in the case on Feb. 15.
Indiana’s Republican-dominated legislature approved the law last year over GOP Gov. Eric Holcomb’s veto, as opponents argued it was a bigoted response to an issue that doesn’t ‘does not exist.
The state attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday. He had argued in papers filed with the appeals court that upholding the judge’s ruling “would open up girls’ sport to members of the male sex with all the benefits of being born male, denying women of equal opportunity to compete fairly and safely in sport”.
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