HANOVER COUNTY, Va. (WRIC) — A federal judge has granted an injunction to a transgender middle schooler in Hanover County which will allow her to play on the school’s tennis team while a lawsuit filed over her being banned from the team continues.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia sued the Hanover County School Board in July over their decision to ban the 11-year-old student, referred to as “Janie Doe” in court documents, from participating in her school’s girls’ tennis team last year.
“The heart of the matter is… it’s about an 11-year-old girl who loves tennis and wants to play with her friends,” said ACLU of Virginia’s Senior Trans Rights Attorney, Wyatt Rolla. “Virginians should all want public schools that are safe and inclusive places for all of our children.”
The case appeared before a federal judge last week for the first time. The judge released comments last Friday.
“The court entered that order because it found that it was likely that Hanover County School Board, by excluding Janie from the girls’ tennis team, had violated both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution,” Rolla said.
The judge’s ruling will allow Janie Doe to participate in upcoming try-outs because school athletics can’t just be paused to wait until the case is over.
“No one really disagrees, factually, [with] what happened here,” Rolla said. “It’s a question of how the law should be applied to those facts.”
According to Rolla, Judge Hannah Lauck said that, if the Hanover County School Board continued to ban Janie from participating in athletics, she would face a “litany of harms.” Rolla read off a what the judge suggested those harms would entail.
“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,” Rolla read.
Janie socially and legally transitioned during elementary school and is on puberty blockers. Rolla said the student’s parents support the young athlete and the recent update brings them joy and relief — they say this is about more than one student.
“We’re in a moment of unprecedented attacks on trans youth — really across the country,” Rolla said. “And Virginia is not an exception to that and I think it’s very important that we understand the context in which these kinds of decisions are being made and that’s a context in which trans youth are facing a coordinated effort to make it very difficult for them to exist.”
The Hanover County School Board has until early September to respond. Their response will determine the briefings and hearings schedules moving forward. As of Aug. 21, the board maintains that it does not comment on ongoing legal matters.
