RICHMOND, Va. – After indicating her ruling from the bench at last Wednesday’s hearing, a federal judge issued a preliminary injunction Friday, August 16 preventing Hanover County Public Schools from continuing to block a transgender middle schooler from trying out for, and, if selected, playing on a sports team alongside her peers during the 2024-2025 school year.
The ruling found that the Hanover County School Board likely violated both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution when it banned 11-year-old “Janie Doe” from the team, which it tried to justify by pointing to the 2023 Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) anti-trans model policies.
“Janie has established that the Board excluded her, on the basis of sex, from participating in an education program when it denied her application to try out for (and if selected, to participate on) her school’s girls’ tennis team,” wrote the U.S. District Court Judge M. Hannah Lauck.
Hanover County School Board’s actions “contravene the strong public interest in educational institutions being free of discrimination of all kinds,” she continued, “including on the basis of gender identity.”
“Janie Doe” is a middle schooler at a Hanover County public school whose identity is being withheld for her privacy and safety. The federal court’s preliminary injunction paves the way for her to finally participate on the sports team she qualified for in 2023 before the school board voted to exclude her from it.
“At the heart of this case is an 11-year-old who loves tennis and just wants to try out with her friends for the team she already made last year,” said ACLU of Virginia Senior Transgender Rights Attorney Wyatt Rolla. “By singling out a transgender student in their district, the adults on the Hanover County School Board bullied Janie and violated nondiscrimination protections that are there to make sure public schools include all students. This ruling should make every school board – not just Hanover – think twice before using VDOE’s model policies to justify discrimination against its students.”
Transgender athlete bans have sparked lawsuits in many of the 25 states that have enacted them. There is no evidence to support the fear that trans athletes have a categorical advantage over cisgender ones; in fact, within the Virginia High School League, trans athletes have been able to compete for more than a decade on teams consistent with their gender identity without any disruption whatsoever. Blanket bans on trans students in school sports are simply a solution in search of a problem.
“This order is a reminder to school boards that protecting transgender young people is part of protecting girls’ sports,” said ACLU of Virginia Legal Director Eden Heilman. “And it’s a flashing red light to any Virginia school board that might be tempted to think that VDOE’s anti-trans model policies give it license to abuse its power. As the court reminded Hanover County School Board in its ruling, no state policies can shield Virginia schools from accountability for violating federal law.”
In fact, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals recently reminded school boards of exactly that in B.P.J v. West Virginia State Board of Education, a case with what Judge Lauck called a “strikingly similar” fact pattern that found West Virginia violated Title IX by barring a transgender middle schooler from participating on a team aligned with her gender identity.
“Federal law trumps state law, not vice versa,” wrote the Fourth Circuit in that case, “and those who violate federal law cannot defend on the grounds that they were simply following state law.”
In Doe v. Hanover County School Board, Judge Lauck found that if the board were to continue to exclude Janie from the team she previously qualified for, she would “face a litany of harms ranging from medical regression, social isolation and stigma, financial and logistical burdens, and the dignitary harms of either ‘outing’ her as transgender or communicating that transgender students are not welcomed or encouraged to participate in school athletics at all.”
Today’s preliminary injunction allowing Janie to try out for the upcoming Fall 2024 athletic season comes as her case proceeds, and the court considers whether to permanently enjoin Hanover County Public Schools from discriminating against Janie.
"We jumped through every hoop Hanover County School Board asked us to, and I hate that we had to go all the way to court just so our child could play on a team she already made,” said the father of ‘Janie Doe.’ “As a family, we should be the ones determining our children’s participation in extracurriculars, not school board officials trying to score political points by bullying my daughter.”
