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Federal judge rules in favor of trans athlete in Hanover

team sitting on the bench before tennis practice, with racquets
Christian Tenguan
/
via Unsplash

Attorneys for Hanover officials declined to comment.

A transgender student from Hanover County will be allowed to try out for her middle school girls’ tennis team after all. U.S. District Court Judge M. Hanna Lauck delivered a favorable ruling Wednesday in a lawsuit filed against the school system for denying the 11-year-old student a spot on the team.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia’s July 3 complaint alleges the Hanover County School Board, its chair Bob May and then-Superintendent Michael Gill discriminated against Janie Doe, a pseudonym used to conceal her identity. The ACLU argued school administrators violated Title IX, which prohibits sex discrimination in publicly funded education programs.

Gill resigned in July and was later removed from the lawsuit. Interim Superintendent Lisa Pennycuff has replaced him as a defendant.

After hearing arguments from both parties on Wednesday, Lauck granted the ACLU’s motion for preliminary injunction, barring Hanover schools from denying Janie a spot on the team for 2024–25 tennis season while the case moves forward.

In her opinion published Friday, Lauck took aim at the school division’s policy regarding transgender students in extracurricular activities and concluded Janie has demonstrated she has suffered harm because of the board’s discriminatory conduct.

“[T]he Policy is overbroad because it forbids transgender boys from playing on boys teams, even though any purported athletic advantage would accrue to the cisgender boy athletes in that context. The Board has not explained how a Policy that excludes transgender boys from boys’ sports ‘substantially relates’ to ‘fairness in competition.’

Court documents show Janie has identified as a girl since age 7–8, legally changed her name and had a Virginia birth certificate issued reflecting her sex as female. In 2021, a psychologist diagnosed Janie with gender dysphoria and at age 9, she received a histrelin implant to prevent the progression of puberty and reduce testosterone.

Janie first tried out for and made the girls’ tennis team at a Hanover middle school in 2023, but the seven-member school board voted against letting her play.

School Board Chair May explained the board’s position and its policies for school extracurricular activities in a Sept. 14, 2023 letterto Janie’s parents.

“After careful consideration, the school board voted unanimously against permitting your student to participate on the middle school girls’ tennis team in effort to ensure fairness in competition for all participants,” May wrote.

The school district’s policies state that for any activities separated by sex, student participation should be determined by sex, not gender identity. The language mirrors the Virginia Department of Education’s model policies, which the state released in July 2023 and Hanover’s school board later adopted. VDOE’s policies are a guide for school districts to use and develop their own rules for the treatment of transgender students.

In June 2024, the school board agreed to reconsider Janie’s request for the upcoming fall season.

It reviewed the ask on Aug. 13 in closed session and came to the same conclusion as it did last year: that Janie should not be allowed to play.

Janie’s family received a second denial letter from May, explaining that the board was beholden to Attorney General Jason Miyares’ opinion that school districts must adopt the state’s model policies and that based on those policies “the determining factor for eligibility is, therefore, biological sex…”

During Wednesday’s court proceedings, the ACLU’s attorneys argued the board’s decision and correspondence with Janie did not sufficiently or meaningfully explain its decision barring her from the team, aside from the fact that she is transgender.

Melissa York, an attorney representing the school system, told the judge that Janie maintains the right to play tennis for Hanover schools — but on the boys’ team.

The ACLU cited the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in April 2024 that struck down West Virginia’s blanket ban on transgender girls playing on girls’ sports teams. The 2021 case involves Becky Pepper-Jackson, a then–11-year-old transgender girl who sought to run on her school’s cross-country team.

Fourth Circuit Judge Toby Heytens wrote in that opinion, “Offering B.P.J. a ‘choice’ between not participating in sports and participating only on boys teams is no real choice at all… The defendants cannot expect that B.P.J. will countermand her social transition, her medical treatment, and all the work she has done with her schools, teachers, and coaches for nearly half her life by introducing herself to teammates, coaches, and even opponents as a boy.”

West Virginia’s attorney general has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the court’s decision.

Miyares recently joined a 26-state coalition of attorneys general in support of West Virginia’s policy and also called on the high court to take up the case.

Attorneys for Hanover officials declined to comment on the outcome of Wednesday's hearing.

Related coverage of the trans model policies

Lyndon German covers Henrico and Hanover counties for VPM News.
Whittney Evans is VPM News’ features editor.