A federal judge has ruled that a Virginia school district may not prevent a transgender student from playing on a girls’ middle school tennis team while the student’s lawsuit against the school board continues.
In issuing the preliminary injunction, the judge said she found the 11-year-old student—identified in court documents only as “Janie Doe”—would likely succeed in the claim that the Hanover County School Board violated both Title IX and the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution when it barred the student from playing on the sports team during the 2024–2025 school year.
“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,” Lauck wrote.
The judge concluded that the district may not bar the student from trying out and playing on the girls’ tennis team this year while the lawsuit filed against the Hanover County school board proceeds.
According to the lawsuit, the student, who “has a gender dysphoria diagnosis” and has identified as a girl since he was 7 years old, tried out for and earned a place on the girls’ tennis team as a sixth-grader in August 2023.
However, shortly afterward, the school board sought medical documentation evidencing the student’s “consistent expression as a female.”
School Board Defends Its Decision
The lawsuit alleges that the school board discriminated against the transgender student in violation of the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and Title IX, a federal law designed to protect females from discrimination based on sex.The school board has said its decision not to allow the student to play on the girls’ team was based on ensuring fairness in competition.
Lauck rejected the board’s position, writing that its actions “contravene the strong public interest in educational institutions being free of discrimination of all kinds, including on the basis of gender identity.”
“Because Janie Doe faces 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, Janie Doe has made more than a clear showing that the discrimination has harmed her,” Lauck wrote.
Rolla accused the school board of “singling out” and bullying the transgender student.
“This ruling should make every school board—not just Hanover—think twice before using VDOE’s model policies to justify discrimination against its students,” Rolla said.
A Hanover County Public Schools spokesperson declined to comment.
