TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A day before it takes effect , a new Florida law banning transgender females from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams …
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A day before it takes effect, a new Florida law banning transgender females from competing on women’s and girls’ sports teams was challenged Wednesday as unconstitutional in federal court. The lawsuit was filed by a 13-year-old transgender girl soccer player from Broward County identified as “D.N.,” and her parents. Attorneys for the Human Rights campaign, a civil rights organization, are among those representing the girl, who they said is named Daisy, plays goalie and is starting 8th grade in the fall. The lawsuit was filed in the Southern District of Florida on the last day of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) “Pride Month.” Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the measure on the first day of Pride Month, which many in the community saw as intentionally confrontational. The governor said the new law would preserve the integrity of female sports in Florida schools. The lawsuit, filed in Miami, argues the new measure is “ironically titled the ‘Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,’ (and) has nothing to do with fairness or equality for girls of women in sport.” Instead, D.N.’s attorneys say that it violates both federal Title IX protections for women’s sports and the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection provisions. The transgender athlete ban now joins a host of new laws which DeSantis pushed through Florida’s Republican-controlled Legislature that are being challenged in federal courts.
