Officials with the Human Rights Campaign Foundation announced today (Wednesday, June 30) that the organization, joined by the law firm of Arnold and Porter, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit in the District Court for the Southern District of Florida, challenging a Florida law banning transgender girls from participating in sports.

This is the first of series of such legal challenges the organization intends to file, according to an HRCF press release, with lawsuits against similar legislation also planned Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee.

HRC President Alphonso David said, “Given the unprecedented onslaught of state legislative attacks, we have a responsibility to utilize every tool in our belt to safeguard the LGBTQ community, including suing the states that infringe upon our civil rights.

“On the first day of Pride Month, a moment of celebration, [Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis] signed a bill into law attacking transgender children. Now, on the last day of Pride, we are sending a message to him, and all anti-equality officials, that you cannot target our community without retribution,” David continued. “Kids just want to play sports and are confused about why their state’s leaders, who are elected to represent them, are so determined to hurt them.

“There is no way to be more clear: Transgender children are children; transgender girls are girls; transgender boys are boys, and our community deserves respect, dignity and equal protection under the law.”

The case in Florida was filed on behalf of a 13-year-old trans girl named Daisy and her parent, Jessica and Gary. Daisy is set to start 8th grade in the fall, and has participated in team sports since she was 8 years old. “She finds joy, friendship and acceptance in basketball, softball and, currently, as a goalie on three different soccer teams,” the press release notes. But the new law would force her to either play on boys’ teams — which she will not do — or quit playing sports completely, “which would be detrimental to her academic and social development, while also potentially risking her personal privacy and safety.”

The child said, “Playing sports makes me feel like I fit in; the thought of not being able to play next year scares me. I’m going to be lonely and sad if I can’t play.”

The press release also notes that Daisy has only participated on girls’ sports teams. Some of her teammates and coaches are aware of her transgender identity, while others are not. “She has enjoyed a supportive school and team environment and continues to play without incident with other teammates, opposing players and coaches or parents of other student athletes,” according to the press release. “With her parents’ support, Daisy began receiving gender-affirming medical care in middle school.”

Daisy’s parents said that knowing that some people their daughter does not deserve to play sports with her friends, with whom she has been playing sports the last seven years with no issues, leaves them with “a very helpless feeling. … Taking this right away will only further isolate her from her peers and take away her ‘safe space.’ She is just a girl that wants to play sports with her friends and be part of a team. As her parents, we just want her to be happy.”

The lawsuit asserts that Florida’s new anti-transgender law violates Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which “expressly prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex, in any education program or activity offered by a recipient of federal financial assistance.” The U.S. Supreme Court just this week left in place a 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling affirming that Title IX does, indeed, protect against anti-trans discrimination by refusing to hear an appeal in the case of Gavin Grimm, a trans man who filed suit in June 2015 when his high school refused him access to the boys’ bathrooms at school.

The HRC lawsuit in Florida “also asserts that the law violates the Equal Protection Clause and Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution,” the press release noted.

HRC, in its press release, notes that even though there has been a “rash of transgender sports ban laws” introduced in states across the country over the last year, including here in Texas, not one lawmaker supporting such legislation has been able to provide any examples in their states that would justify these bans. That fact, the press release said, “lay[s] bare the reality that [the laws] are fueled by discriminatory intent and not supported by fact.”

The press release also pointed to recent polls showing that the majority of Americans, including a majority of Republicans, oppose such bans.

— Tammye Nash