Feb 13 (Reuters) – A federal appeals courtroom on Monday agreed to rethink a lawsuit difficult a Connecticut coverage permitting transgender college students to compete in women’ highschool sports activities.

All judges of the New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals will now hear arguments within the case, which had been heard by a panel of three judges final September.

The panel in December rejected claims by 4 cisgender feminine college students that the coverage disadvantaged them of wins and athletic alternatives by requiring them to compete with two transgender sprinters.

That they had sued the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Convention (CIAC), which oversees highschool sports activities in Connecticut, saying its coverage violated Title IX, a federal legislation designed to create equal alternatives for ladies in training and athletics.

“We’re happy the 2nd Circuit has determined to rehear this necessary case, and we urge the courtroom to guard ladies’s athletic alternatives,” Christiana Kiefer, senior counsel on the conservative authorized group Alliance Defending Freedom, which represents the plaintiffs, stated in an announcement.

A CIAC spokesperson declined to remark.

The 2020 lawsuit got here amid a push by Republican-led states to bar transgender athletes from competing on groups or sports activities that align with their gender identities.

Circuit Choose Denny Chin, writing for the three-judge panel, in September stated the 4 plaintiffs had not proven they had been disadvantaged of alternatives, as a result of all usually competed in state observe championships and on quite a few events got here in first.

The complete courtroom, following its common observe, didn’t give a cause for rehearing the case past noting {that a} majority of the judges had voted in favor of it.

Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Modifying by Alexia Garamfalvi, Lincoln Feast and David Gregorio

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