A federal judge has ordered a Virginia school board to allow a transgender-identified male student to play on the girls’ middle school tennis team while a discrimination lawsuit against the board proceeds in court.
On August 16, U.S. District Court Judge M. Hannah Lauck issued a preliminary injunction against the Hanover County School Board, ruling that the plaintiff, referred to as “Janie Doe,” had demonstrated that the board discriminated against her based on sex by denying her the opportunity to try out for the girls’ tennis team. In her ruling, Judge Lauck stated that the board’s actions excluded the student “on the basis of sex” from participating in an educational program.
The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in July, claims that the school board discriminated against the 11-year-old student by refusing to allow her to play on the girls’ sports team. Janie Doe, who has identified as female since the age of seven, has used she/her pronouns and presented herself as a girl to her family, friends, and school. Her legal name was changed at age eight, and a birth certificate was issued reflecting her sex as female.
According to court documents, Janie began seeing a