In Colorado, a conservative-leaning school district is suing the blue state over its inclusive policies allowing transgender student-athletes to compete on school teams matching their gender identity.

School District 49 in Colorado Springs filed the lawsuit on Friday and named its defendants as the state officials and the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSSA), which oversees high school sports in the state, Chalkbeat Colorado reports.

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But LGBTQ+ advocates are worried that it’s being brought up in a deep-blue state at all.

The lawsuit follows the playbook of similar suits in other states and school districts — and the current presidential administration’s approach to the issue — which turn anti-discrimination protections on their head.

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Noting that the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution’s 14th Amendment bans unequal application of laws based on personal characteristics, the lawsuit argues that allowing transgender girls to join girls’ teams deprives cisgender girls of athletic opportunities in violation of the amendment. The rights of transgender student-athletes are not addressed.

The lawsuit also argues that girls’ and boys’ privacy rights under the Equal Protection Clause would be violated if they had to share a locker room with trans athletes.

The plaintiffs claim that Colorado’s protections for people based on gender identity, in concert with the CHSSA’s bylaws, put the school district “in an untenable position.”

“Compliance with these state requirements would force the District to violate students’ constitutional rights and risk federal funding loss, while adherence to federal obligations exposes the District to state penalties including fines and athletic-program suspension,” the lawsuit says.

School Board President ​​Lori Thompson shared in an interview last week that she was aware of one instance of a trans student in District 49 sports: a trans boy who wanted to join a boys’ team. He was allowed to try out but didn’t make the cut, she said.

For years, Colorado school districts and the CHSAA have addressed participation by trans student-athletes on a case-by-case basis. With the U.S. president’s inauguration and his subsequent order calling for “biological males” to be barred from girls’ school sports nationwide, the conservative District 49 joined calls for a sweeping ban of trans athletes from play.

In April, 60 Colorado school and district officials, including two from District 49, sent the CHSSA a letter demanding it adopt rules “to ensure that boys are not permitted to compete as girls in girls’ sports.”

CHSSA’s lawyer recently reiterated that determining eligibility for sports teams in the state is a matter of local control. He described the association’s position on trans student-athletes as “neutral.”

Colorado Springs has a fraught history with the LGBTQ+ community. The conservative city is home to both the far-right, anti-LGBTQ+ organization Focus on the Family and Club Q, the gay nightclub where five people were slain and 25 others were injured in November 2022.

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