Colorado school districts' lawsuit over trans athlete policies dismissed for lack of standing

A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by eight Colorado school districts and charter schools seeking to protect their policies barring "transgender" students from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity, ruling Aug. 27 that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue because they hadn’t been harmed nor faced the future prospect of harm.

Senior U.S. District Judge John Kane's decision affirmed a January recommendation from Magistrate Judge Maritza Dominguez Braswell, whose findings the districts had objected to. Kane found the districts hadn't shown they faced any real threat of harm, since state officials have not penalized public schools for adopting such policies and the districts couldn't point to a specific transgender athlete likely to challenge them. He also rejected the districts' argument that they could sue on behalf of all their students, since students themselves may hold differing views on the issue.

School District 49, based in Colorado Springs, led the lawsuit, joined by Colorado Springs District 11, Academy District 20, Montezuma-Cortez School District, James Irwin Charter Schools, Monument Academy, the Classical Academy and Education reEnvisioned Board of Cooperative Education Services. 

District 49 sued in May 2025 after its school board narrowly adopted a policy classifying sports teams and locker rooms by biological sex rather than gender identity, covering roughly 1,700 student athletes across 14 sports. The district's complaint argued that Colorado's anti-discrimination law and the bylaws of the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA), which governs high school sports statewide, put it in conflict with federal Title IX and equal-protection obligations, citing President Donald Trump's February 2025 executive order on women's sports. The policy's stated rationale was that "men are born with significant inherent advantages" in athletic competition.

Kane's ruling did not address the merits of that underlying dispute, resting instead on the procedural question of standing. He also noted that the U.S. Supreme Court's June ruling upholding state bans on "transgender" athletes in women's sports had no bearing on his standing analysis.

The lawsuit's practical stakes had already been narrowed by a separate December 2025 settlement, in which CHSAA, one of the defendants in the current case, agreed not to penalize member schools over their transgender-athlete policies. 

Peter Hilts, superintendent of District 49, said in a statement provided to Chalkbeat that the district disagreed with Kane's ruling but noted that "we have already secured protections for our students and coaches" through the CHSAA settlement, and said the district was weighing its next move. The Colorado attorney general's office declined to comment on the ruling.