Virginia AG files brief in support of local school policy separating sports by biological sex

(The Center Square) – Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares filed an amicus brief Thursday on behalf of the Hanover County School Board, which barred a middle school male student identifying as a transgender girl from playing on the girls’ tennis team.

“Neither the federal Constitution nor any federal statute require Virginia school boards to allow biological males to play on a girls sports team,” Miyares said in a statement. “Rather, civil rights law is meant to protect female equity in athletics. I urge the court to ensure that women’s rights and opportunities remain protected in Virginia.”

The brief is the latest of the administration’s attempts to discuss transgender issues in schools. Most recently, Miyares filed another amicus brief, along with a cohort of attorneys general from other states, on behalf of parents in Wisconsin opposing schools socially transitioning their children behind their backs.

“It is essential that schools work with parents, not against them, to support a child’s well-being,” Miyares said of that case. “Parents have the right to be involved in major decisions affecting their children’s lives.” 

Last summer, the Virginia Department of Education’s release of new model policies on the treatment of transgender students stirred up parents, students and schools across the commonwealth. The previous administration had passed a law calling on the department to develop model policies to ensure transgender students were supported in schools, receiving affirmation from teachers, school staff and other students as much as possible. 

Youngkin’s administration believed a different approach was needed, and so updated model policies were introduced last summer, encouraging sex-based segregation in bathrooms, locker rooms and sports teams where traditionally practiced.

Some school districts have embraced the new model policies, and others have firmly rejected them, claiming, as the American Civil Liberties Union has in this case, that they violate federal (and state) law.

Miyares has also advocated for women’s sports to be reserved for females. He stood with the women’s swim team of Roanoke College when they protested their experience of having a transgender woman join their team (the student swam with them for a month but ultimately left the team). Miyares also appeared at an NCAA track meet, where some women’s sports groups protested a transgender track athlete from competing at the women’s event.

In this case, the ACLU is arguing that the Hanover County School Board’s policy, which in most cases restricts participation by biological sex for school-related programs or activities that have typically been sex-segregated, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and Title IX.