Suit Against Transgender Athletes Filed In Federal Court

* In July, NBC spoke with Selina Soule, Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller

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Three female high school athletes from Connecticut and their families filed a lawsuit in federal court in Manchester on Wednesday aiming to deny transgender athletes the right to compete in varsity athletics. 

The lawsuit aims to upend the current Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference rule which allows athletes of the gender in which they identify with to compete in the sport of their choosing. The CIAC has said previously that its regulations are based around state law and NFHS guidelines. 

The three plaintiffs -- along with their mothers -- named in the lawsuit on Wednesday are Glastonbury (CT) High School senior Selina Soule, Canton (CT) High School's Chelsea Mitchell and Danbury's Alanna Smith. 

Mitchell, a William & Mary signee who is ranked third in the long jump nationally indoors, told the Hartford Courant on Tuesday: 

"No girl should have to settle into her starting blocks knowing that you don't have a fair shot at winning." 

It follows on the heels of a Title IX discrimination complaint in June with the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, filed by the Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom. 

The executive director of the CIAC, Glenn Lungarini, told the Courant: 

"The CIAC is committed to equity and providing opportunities to student athletes in Connecticut. We are now aware that there is an intention to challenge the policy regarding transgender participation. CIAC takes these matters seriously. We will cooperate fully in any legal matter." 

But Connecticut is not the only state currently wading through this complicated topic. 

A total of 17 bills are on the legislative floor in states across the country, with language within those bills aiming to exclude transgender youth from competing in athletics under the gender in which they identity with. 


At heart of both issues is the success of two transgender sprinters and biological males, Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller -- both named in the lawsuit -- who have won state high school track and field championships in recent years running for their high school programs within the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference.

The suit alleges that biological girls competing in Connecticut are suffering the negative impacts of competing against transgender athletes, who are displacing them in meets and shielding them from recruiting opportunities and state championship hardware.