Colorado school districts sues CHSAA, state to clear way for transgender athlete ban

Kyle Newman, The Denver Post on May 12, 2025

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A Colorado school district banned transgender athletes from playing on teams that match their gender identities last week, then filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn polices and state law that stand in the way.

District 49 named CHSAA, the Colorado Civil Rights Division and Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser in the lawsuit. The district, which is located in the Colorado Springs area, said that the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act and CHSAA’s bylaws allowing transgender athletes to compete put D49 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 states.

The lawsuit seeks a court ruling declaring rules on prohibiting transgender athlete bans by CHSAA and CADA to be unconstitutional. CHSAA Bylaw 300 “recognizes the right of transgender student-athletes to participate in interscholastic activities free from unlawful discrimination based on sexual orientation.”

President Donald Trump issued an executive order Feb. 5 designed to ban athletes assigned male at birth from competing in female sports, and CHSAA has maintained a “neutral” stance on the issue in the ensuing months. If CHSAA were to direct schools to comply with Trump’s federal order, the association’s legal representation said it would be advising schools to break state anti-discrimination laws.

According to the lawsuit, on Feb. 10, CHSAA commissioner Michael Krueger, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, sent an email to member schools noting “there is a direct conflict between federal directives and existing Colorado state law.”

Until state and federal laws align on the issue, the association is deferring decisions on the matter to the local level. That remained the case after representatives from 24 school districts and charter schools wrote CHSAA in mid-April with a demand to “immediately adopt rules and practices to ensure that boys are not permitted to compete as girls in girls’ sports.”

District 49, which encompasses northeast Colorado Springs and the Falcon area of El Paso County, has over 10,000 students in 21 schools, including three high schools: Vista Ridge, Sand Creek and Falcon. In the lawsuit, the district wrote its new policy banning transgender athletes from sports teams was to “preserve athletic opportunities for female students in light of the substantial natural athletic advantage possessed by male students.”

As a basis for the lawsuit, D49 cited the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Title IX and discrimination on the basis of sex. The lawsuit argues that CADA and CHSAA’s transgender policies “threaten to unravel decades of precedent forbidding sex-based discrimination.”

D49 filed the lawsuit in light of its new policy banning transgender athletes, as the “policy violates CADA and the CHSAA bylaws and the District has a credible fear that the State of Colorado and CHSAA will take enforcement action against it based on its policy.”

The district is asking a Colorado court for a declaratory judgment that CADA and CHSAA does not require D49 “to allow boys to play on girls athletic teams, girls to play on boys athletic teams, to open private spaces open to athletes of one sex to members of the opposite, or to house members of the opposite sex in travel accommodations for school sports.” It also wants the court to award the district monetary compensation for attorneys’ fees from the lawsuit.

A spokesman for Weiser’s office said the “AG is committed to defending the state’s civil rights laws,” and had no further comment on the lawsuit.

CHSAA said it still hasn’t received any official notice of the lawsuit.

“Should official notice be received, we will organize our team accordingly and proceed through the appropriate legal channels,” CHSAA’s statement read.

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