A Colorado school district banned transgender athletes from playing on teams that match their gender identities last week, then filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn polices and state law that stand in the way.
As reported by The Denver Post, District 49 named the Colorado High School Activities Association, the Colorado Civil Rights Division and Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser in the lawsuit. The district, which is in the Colorado Springs area, said that the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act and CHSAA’s bylaws allowing transgender athletes to compete put D49 in an “untenable position.”
A Colorado school district banned transgender athletes from playing on teams that match their gender identities last week, then filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn polices and state law that stand in the way.
As reported by The Denver Post, District 49 named the Colorado High School Activities Association, the Colorado Civil Rights Division and Colorado attorney general Phil Weiser in the lawsuit. The district, which is in the Colorado Springs area, said that the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act and CHSAA’s bylaws allowing transgender athletes to compete put D49 in an “untenable position.”
“Compliance with these state requirements would force the District to violate students’ constitutional rights and risk federal funding loss, while adherence to federal obligations exposes the District to state penalties including fines and athletic-program suspension,” the lawsuit states, as reported by The Post.
The lawsuit seeks a court ruling declaring CHSAA and CADA rules prohibiting transgender athlete bans as unconstitutional. CHSAA Bylaw 300 “recognizes the right of transgender student-athletes to participate in interscholastic activities free from unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation.”
The CHSAA has maintained a “neutral” stance on transgender bans in the months since President Trump issued a national ban by executive order Feb. 5. If CHSAA were to direct schools to comply with Trump’s federal order, the association noted it would be advising schools to break state anti-discrimination laws, Kyle Newman reported for The Post.
According to the lawsuit, on Feb. 10, CHSAA commissioner Michael Krueger, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, sent an email to member schools noting “there is a direct conflict between federal directives and existing Colorado state law.”
"Until state and federal laws align on the issue, the association is deferring decisions on the matter to the local level.," Newman wrote. "That remained the case after representatives from 24 school districts and charter schools wrote CHSAA in mid-April with a demand to 'immediately adopt rules and practices to ensure that boys are not permitted to compete as girls in girls’ sports.' ”
District 49 has over 10,000 students in 21 schools, including three high schools. In the lawsuit, the district wrote its new policy banning transgender athletes from sports teams was to “preserve athletic opportunities for female students in light of the substantial natural athletic advantage possessed by male students.”
D49 superintendent Peter Hilts told The Post that about two weeks ago, in a letter to CHSAA following up on the April 14 correspondence that was signed by Hilts, D49 asked CHSAA to adjust its bylaws regarding transgender participation to align with President Trump’s executive order.
“They declined to do that,” Hilts said. “And so that’s when we decided that we would follow up with a federal lawsuit.”
Per Newman's reporting, the district is asking a Colorado court for a declaratory judgment that CADA and CHSAA does not require D49 “to allow boys to play on girls' athletic teams, girls to play on boys' athletic teams, to open private spaces open to athletes of one sex to members of the opposite, or to house members of the opposite sex in travel accommodations for school sports.”
It also wants the court to award the district monetary compensation for attorneys’ fees from the lawsuit.
