Score one for the 11-year-old trans girl who just wants to play soccer

A federal judge on Thursday put Arizona’s transgender sports ban on hold, ruling that two trans girls can try out for their schools’ sports teams.

U.S. District Court Judge Jennifer Zipps slapped a preliminary injunction on the state, preventing a 2022 law from being enforced against them pending a trial.

This, given the strong likelihood that it’ll wind up in the sizable trash heap of unconstitutional laws passed by the Arizona Legislature.

“There is no evidence that any Defendant will be harmed by allowing Plaintiffs to continue playing with their peers, as they have done until now,” Zipps wrote.

Horne will appeal the judge's ruling

Naturally, Superintendent Tom Horne plans to appeal, predicting the conservative U.S. Supreme Court will see things his way and tell those kids to pound sand.

Until then, however, the law is a swing and a whiff — a likely violation of both Title IX and the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause, according to the judge.

Expect to see Republican leaders collapse in a full-out panic attack over the prospect of an 11-year-old and a 15-year-old trampling their teammates in their pursuit of athletic glory — or in the alternative, a plastic trophy.

And yet the Legislature’s transgender sports ban solved a problem we didn’t actually have.

Arizona already had rules in place that prevented an unfair playing field. Despite that, lawmakers came to the “rescue” last year with their “Save Women’s Sports Act.”

Rules to ensure fairness existed for years

Senate Bill 1165 barred any trans girl from playing on any girls’ team at a public school or any private school that competes against public schools. They’d be banned even from playing girls’ intramural sports.

Doesn’t matter if they’re in kindergarten or college, they’d be banned.

“This bill protects our daughters and our granddaughters,” then-Senate Judiciary Chairman Warren Petersen, R-Gilbert, said during a hearing last year on the bill. “It’s absolute lunacy to think that it’s OK to allow a male to dominate in a female sport.”

That would be absolute lunacy.

So, here’s where Petersen and his fellow Republicans offered the many examples of Arizona transgender girls who are trampling the dreams of their teammates.

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OK, so there weren’t any.

That’s because the Arizona Interscholastic Association already had the issue handled, deciding on a case-by-case basis whether transgender student athletes can play on high school teams.

Judge saw through the plaintiffs' case

Transgender girls are required to apply if they want to play on a team that conforms with their gender identity.

They must submit letters of support from a parent, a school administrator and a doctor, and their application must be approved by the AIA’s Sports Medicine Advisory Committee and by the AIA’s executive board.

In all, about a dozen transgender athletes have applied to compete over the last 10 to 12 years, according to the AIA. Seven have been approved.

None have posed a problem.

“The record does not support a finding that during the 10 to 12 years prior to passage of the Act there was a risk of any physical injury or missed athletic opportunity by any girl as a result of allowing seven transgender girls to play on sports teams consistent with their gender identity,” Zipps wrote.

The judge noted that the state provided no evidence to show that trans girls who haven’t gone through male puberty have any unfair advantage, though Horne disputed that.

Why crush transgender kids' spirits?

What’s not in dispute is the stunning suicide rate among transgender teens, struggling to figure out how and where they fit in.

More than half of all transgender and nonbinary youth in the U.S. seriously contemplated dying by suicide in 2020, according to The Trevor Project’s third annual National Survey on LGBTQ Youth Mental Health.

It’s tough enough to be a kid.

Add in the rejection, the isolation and the bullying of classmates and of politicians who spend a fair amount of time worrying about where you go to the bathroom or what uniform you’re wearing, and I imagine it’s a fairly crushing experience.

What to know: About Arizona's transgender sports ban lawsuit

Imagine telling an 11-year-old trans girl — one who has played girls’ sports for half of her life — that she can’t try out for her middle school soccer team.

Or advising a 15-year-old that she can’t play volleyball.

Neither of these children has gone through male puberty. Both are getting medical treatment to ensure they won’t.

One-size-fits-all law is not 'equal protection'

Oh, there is an issue here.

Look no further than University of Pennsylvania transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, who went through puberty and later began to medically transition, taking testosterone blockers and estrogen.

She obliterated school and national records while competing on the women’s swim team.

The trick is in trying to strike the proper balance to ensure that “equal protection” is really equal — one that protects the rights of all student athletes.

Or we could just slam down one-size-fits-all laws that penalize 11-year-olds.

“Kids will be harmed if we don’t prevent this because we see this is happening,” Petersen warned last year in urging passage of the bill.

And kids will be harmed, Sen. Petersen, if your law had been allowed to deny these kids a chance to play.

Fortunately, a federal judge understood that.

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com. Follow her on Twitter at @LaurieRoberts.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona transgender sports ban is on hold. Score one for trans girls