Federal Appeals Court Reverses West Virginia Ban on Transgender Athletes in Sports

A federal appeals court has recently overturned a West Virginia transgender sports ban, stating that the law is in violation of Title IX, a federal civil rights law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in schools. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled on Tuesday that the West Virginia law prohibiting transgender girls from participating in girls’ sports teams cannot be lawfully applied to a 13-year-old girl who has identified as a girl since the third grade and has been taking puberty-blocking medication.

The issue of transgender participation in sports has been a major topic of legislative and legal battles in the United States in recent years. The majority of Republican-controlled states have implemented restrictions on transgender participation in sports competitions, as well as bans on gender-affirming health care for minors. Additionally, some states have imposed limits on which bathrooms and locker rooms transgender individuals can use, particularly within schools.

West Virginia is just one of 24 states that currently have laws in place preventing transgender women and girls from competing in certain women’s or girls’ sports competitions. Similar bans are active in states like Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Wyoming. However, certain bans have been temporarily put on hold by judges in Arizona, Idaho, and Utah, while a ban in Ohio is slated to take effect later this month.

The Biden administration had initially planned to release a new federal Title IX rule that addressed campus sexual assault and transgender athlete participation together. However, the Department of Education has since decided to separate the two issues into distinct rules, leaving the athletics rule in limbo. In the past year, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s decision blocking Idaho’s ban on transgender athletes competing in girls’ and women’s sports, while the 2nd Circuit ruled differently in a challenge to Connecticut’s transgender athlete policy by sending the case back to a lower court without ruling on its merits.