A federal judge will allow a West Virginia State University women’s soccer player to intervene against transgender athletes who in a lawsuit are demanding the right to play women’s sports in the state.
District Judge Joseph R. Goodwin said in an order issued Wednesday that Lainey Armistead, a scholarship athlete for the Division II Yellow Jackets, “may intervene permissively” to defend the constitutionality of the state law, known as the Protect Women’s Sports Act.
Judge Goodwin, appointed by President Clinton, wrote in his opinion that Ms. Armstrong “will add a perspective not represented by any of the current defendants” about the West Virginia law, which limits participation in women’s sports in K-12 schools and colleges to competitors like herself who were born female.
“I find that allowing Ms. Armistead to intervene will not cause undue delay or prejudice,” the judge wrote.
“Ms. Armistead plans to defend [the state law] as a member of the class of people for whom the law was written,” he added.
Judge Goodwin also noted the soccer player’s concern “that allowing transgender women to compete on women’s teams and in women’s leagues will put her at risk of injury, of losing her playing spot on her team, or of losing an opportunity to meaningfully compete for a championship title.”
Ms. Armistead, a 2019 graduate of Daviess County High School in Owensboro, Kentucky, has played soccer since childhood.
She told The Washington Times in an emailed statement after the ruling that she considers allowing biological males to compete in women’s sports to be a blow against “fairness, equality and safety in sports.”
“I believe that protecting fairness in women’s sports is a women’s rights issue,” Ms. Armistead said.
“This isn’t just about fair play for me; it’s about protecting fairness and safety for female athletes across West Virginia,” she added.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed the lawsuit, B.P.J. v. West Virginia State Board of Education, on July 16 in the Charleston Division of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia.
The civil rights group in the lawsuit is representing a transgender middle school cheerleader named Becky and her mother, Heather Jackson, in challenging the constitutionality of the state’s ban on biological males who identify as female. Becky wants to try out for the school’s cross-country team, which is banned under state law.
“This ban, and laws like it, are opposed by women athletes, women’s sports organizations and medical experts,” the ACLU writes on its web page for the case, last updated Nov. 8.
The ACLU website says the law is one of “over 75 anti-trans laws” that have been introduced in legislatures around the country this year.
West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice, who became a Republican in 2017 after being elected to office as a Democrat in 2016, signed the bill into law on April 28.
Several states, including Arkansas, Idaho and Mississippi have similar bans at both the K-12 and collegiate levels.
Ms. Armistead is being represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom, an Arizona-based Christian advocacy group that is also representing female athletes in similar cases in Idaho and Connecticut.
“Allowing males to compete in girls’ sports destroys fair competition, safety on the field, and women’s athletic opportunities,” Christiana Holcomb, a legal counsel for the group, said in a statement this week.
“When our laws and policies ignore biological reality, girls and women get hurt,” Ms. Holcomb added.
• Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@washingtontimes.com.
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