A federal judge in Indiana has ruled Indianapolis Public Schools must allow a 10-year-old transgender girl to play on her school’s girls’ softball team.
The order was a blow to Indiana legislators who passed a new law banning transgender students from participating in all-female school sports in the state. HEA 1041 took effect July 1, after a veto by Gov. Eric Holcomb (R), and subsequent override by the majority-Republican house and senate.
U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of Indiana Jane Magnus-Stinson issued the preliminary injunction Tuesday in response to a lawsuit filed in federal court by ACLU Indiana and the girl’s mother on the child’s behalf.
According to Magnus-Stinson’s order, the plaintiff, named by her initials A.M., began identifying as a girl before she was four years old. In 2021, a state court changed the gender marker on her birth certificate to female, and she’s currently on puberty blockers.
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The injunction states A.M. “has a likelihood of succeeding on the merits of her claim” that the new law violates Title IX of the Equal Opportunity in Education Act. Title IX bans discrimination on the basis of sex in all schools that receive federal funding.
“A.M.’s challenge to the lawfulness of (HEA 1041) raises controversial issues regarding the boundaries of Title IX and whether and how those boundaries should stretch and shift in an ever-changing world,” Magnus-Stinson wrote in her findings. “But ‘the limits of the drafters’ imagination supply no reason to ignore the law’s demand. When the express terms of a statute give us one answer and extratextual considerations suggest another, it’s no contest. Only the written word is the law, and all persons are entitled to its benefit.”
Furthermore, Magnus-Stinson noted, the law only pertains to transgender girls, and the “singling out of transgender females is unequivocally discrimination on the basis of sex, regardless of the policy argument as to why that choice was made.”
In a statement released with his veto, Governor Holcomb warned of just such an outcome in the courts. Citing similar cases in other states “with initial rulings thus far, the courts have enjoined or prohibited laws with these same substantive provisions from taking effect based on equal protection grounds,” Holcomb wrote.
He added there is “no evidence” to support the idea that transgender girls are making it impossible for cisgender girls to participate in sports in the state. According to Holcomb, the Indiana High School Athletic Association “has done an admirable job to help maintain fairness and consistency in all sports.”
“Not a single case of a male seeking to participate on a female team has completed the process established by IHSAA’s not decade-old policy,” Holcomb wrote.
In the statement, Holcomb also referred to a case making its way through the courts of a transgender boy in Martinsville, Indiana who filed suit in 2021 after he was forced to use the girls’ bathroom, was constantly misgendered by teachers, and was told that he couldn’t play on boys’ sports teams.
In April, the chief judge for the same circuit issued an injunction and ordered the Martinsville school district to allow him to play. In May, that order survived another challenge when the school district appealed to the same court for a delay and the request was denied.
