A former federal prosecutor who helped lead the charge in creating a women’s soccer team at UConn through a Title IX complaint said Wednesday she thinks there is merit to a complaint filed earlier this week claiming that the statewide policy on transgender high school athletes is discriminatory toward those who are not transgender.
The complaint, filed by conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of three track and field athletes in the state, claims that the policy allowing transgender females to compete against cisgender (someone who identifies with their birth sex) girls has cost some athletes top finishes in competitions and possibly college scholarships.
“Both transgender and cisgender females should be allowed to fully participate in some structure they’ll have to create, because it doesn’t exist,” said Felice Duffy, a former New Haven-based federal prosecutor who specializes in Title IX cases. She added, “the way this is being handled is in violation of Title IX.”
Duffy, who filed a Title IX complaint as a student at UConn to start a women’s soccer team in 1979, said that a committee or panel should be convened by the state’s high school governing body, the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, to address the issue. The CIAC’s policy follows a state anti-discrimination law which requires students to be treated in school, including at athletic events, according to the gender by which they identify. The CIAC stated this week that it “is committed to equity in providing opportunities to student athletes in Connecticut” and that it believes the policy is “appropriate” under Title IX.
“I fully believe transgender females should be allowed to participate on women’s teams,” Duffy continued. “But when it comes to postseason competition, which is based on available slots, that a rule needs to be fashioned that allowed both transgender female and cisgender females to fully participate.
“People are going to have to change how sports are looked at. It has to be creative and compassionate. I think somebody needs to talk to the kids and see what they think would be good for them. But I don’t think you can just decide to protect only one group, cisgender or transgender.”
Erin Buzuvis, a professor at Western New England College’s school of law who is the director of the school’s Center for Gender and Sexuality Studies, said that the complaint is unprecedented in athletics but felt that it may be similar to the cases where transgender students have been allowed to use bathrooms that match their gender identity.
“There have been cases where parents and students oppose letting the transgender students use the bathrooms that match their gender identity and the courts have ruled against them,” she said. “The results have consistently been in favor of transgender students’ rights in single sex spaces.
“There is a decent parallel between the bathroom cases and sport in that both of them have a regulation that permits segregation by sex.”
The complaint was filed with the U.S. Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights on behalf of Glastonbury High track and field runner Selina Soule and two other athletes who have not been identified. It is focused on two transgender girls — Bloomfield’s Terry Miller and Cromwell’s Andraya Yearwood — who have excelled in track the last few years.
Soule, in an interview on Fox News’ “Tucker Carlson Tonight,” pointed specifically to the 2018-19 indoor track season. During the State Open preliminaries in the 55-meter dash, Soule finished eighth while Miller and Yearwood finished first and second, respectively. With the top seven runners moving on to the finals, Soule was eliminated from competition unfairly she claimed. The top six runners in the finals are automatically entered into the New England High School Indoor Championships where, the complaint claims, numerous college coaches could see her run and offer scholarships.
At the same meet, Soule was a member of the 4×200 relay team that won and went on to the New England championship. There, they placed third.
Bloomfield and Miller wound up winning the State Open during the indoor season, while Soule’s Glastonbury team finished second.
“No one in the state of Connecticut is happy about this,” Soule claimed on Carlson’s show, “but no one has enough courage to speak up and I haven’t been the only one affected by this. There have been countless other female athletes in the state of Connecticut as well as my entire indoor track team. We missed out on winning the State Open championship because of the team that the transgender athlete was [on] won.”
Miller and Yearwood issued statements this week saying they are proud to stand up for trans athletes.
“I have faced discrimination in every aspect of my life and I no longer want to remain silent. I am a girl and I am a runner,” Miller said. “I participate in athletics just like my peers to excel, find community and meaning in my life. It is both unfair and painful that my victories have to be attacked and my hard work ignored.”
“I have known two things for most of my life: I am a girl and I love to run,” Yearwood added. “There is no shortage of discrimination that I face as a young Black woman who is transgender. I have to wake up every day in a world where people who look like me face so many scary and unfair things. I am lucky to live in a state that protects my rights and to have a family that supports me.”
Many coaches, like Central Connecticut State University’s men’s and women’s track and cross country coach Eric Blake said that he doesn’t recruit runners based on placement but rather times. Unlike basketball, for example, track can be measured on an individual basis.
“There’s a value in winning races and championships, but college coaches are not going to overlook fast performances, if that athlete is finishing fourth, fifth, sixth or 10th,” Blake said. “If they are putting up fast performances, they will get looked at.”
For example, he said, a runner from New York or Florida may run a fast 200 time but not even advance to the state championships, whereas that same time in Connecticut — as a much smaller state — might give the runner a high placing in the class or state meets.
“In high school, there is a lot of opportunity,” he said. “We have the class meets, the state meet. There are a lot of runners who go to the national meets. The seasons are long. If an athlete is missing out on one race, there’s still another race. There’s always another competition out there. If the goal is to perform for college coaches, there is plenty of opportunity for that.
“It’s about what they can do in college; it’s all about potential.”
Lori Riley can be reached at lriley@courant.com.
