Former Connecticut HS track star sues state over trans athlete policy

Chelsea Mitchell, a former high school track runner who was once hailed as “the fastest girl in Connecticut,” is taking legal action to overturn the state’s policy that allows transgender athletes to compete in accordance with their gender identity. Mitchell has filed a lawsuit against the Connecticut Association of Schools and the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, claiming that this policy cost her multiple championship titles, awards and podium finishes.

Mitchell alleges that she lost four women’s state championship titles, two All-New England awards, and numerous other opportunities for recognition due to competing against transgender athletes.

In her estimation, Mitchell believes that these athletes “took fifteen state championships away from other girls.” Now a collegiate track athlete, she has also questioned whether these losses impacted her college recruitment and scholarship opportunities.

“Besides the psychological toll of experiencing unfair losses over and over, the CIAC’s policy has more tangible harms for women,” Mitchell wrote in a USA Today opinion piece. “It robs girls of the chance to race in front of college scouts who show up for elite metes, and to compete for the scholarships and opportunities that come with college recruitment. I’ll never know how my own college recruitment was impacted by losing those four state championship titles to a male. When colleges looked at my record, they didn’t see the fastest girl in Connecticut. They saw a second- or third-place runner.”

Teaming up with three other Connecticut residents who were also former high school track runners, Selina Soule, Ashley Nicoletti, and Alanna Smith, the four are represented by the Alliance Defending Freedom.

Matt Sharp, Mitchell’s lawyer with the Alliance Defending Freedom, has said he is “hopeful that the court will declare that this Connecticut policy violates Title IX” and will “recognize the damage done to Chelsea and the other athletes.”

“I wanted to give voice to my story and help other girls out there so that they wouldn’t have to experience this,” Mitchell told The New York Post of her decision to file this lawsuit. “At the end of the day, this is just about fairness. This is about biology.”

Mitchell previously attempted to block the policy in 2020, but the challenge was dismissed by a federal judge the following year, a decision which the runners have since moved to appealed. The case will be reheard before the full Second Circuit Court of Appeals in New York City on June 6, after a three-judge panel of the Second Circuit ruled against the athlete’s argument in December, leading to the upcoming rehearing.

While the Alliance Defending Freedom aims to demonstrate that the Connecticut policy violates Title IX, the Department of Education released a proposed change to its Title IX regulations last month, potentially complicating the case. The proposed revision would make it a violation of Title IX to categorically ban transgender students from participating on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

Currently, 21 states have laws that bar transgender students from participating in sports consistent with their gender identity. The Department of Education said that part of its reasoning behind the proposed change to Title IX was “because some states have chosen to adopt new laws and policies on athletics participation that target transgender students.”