Washington D.C., Mar 26, 2020 / 11:00 am
The Department of Justice said Tuesday that biological males who identify as women should not be classified as girls when it comes to athletics.
Attorney General Bill Barr and several other Department of Justice officials co-signed a statement of interest on March 24 in the case Soule v. Connecticut Association of Schools. The suit was filed by three female high school athletes from Connecticut--Selina Soule, Chelsea Mitchell, and Alanna Smith--who lost races to biological male competitors who identify as girls.
The statement from the Justice Department says that the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC) was wrong in their belief that Title IX required the organization to permit biologically male athletes to compete alongside and against biological females.
"The Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference (CIAC), however, has adopted a policy that requires biological males to compete against biological females-despite the real physiological differences between the sexes-if the male is a transgender individual who publicly identifies with the female gender. CIAC claims that 'federal law' requires this state of affairs," said the statement of interest.