Grand Canyon Times

Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne will hire his own legal team to defend against a federal lawsuit challenging a state law prohibiting boys from participating in girls' school sports.

"You ask if I'm gonna hire my own legal team," Horne said. "The answer is yes," Horne told the Grand Canyon Times, following a report that Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes will not defend the state law.

The lawsuit, which was filed Tuesday in the U.S. District Court in Tucson, challenges Senate Bill 1165. That bill, signed into law by then-Gov. Doug Ducey (R-Ariz.) in March 2022, prohibits biological males from competing in girls’ sports at the K-12 and collegiate levels. 

"You asked if I have discussed the lawsuit with the governor, I have not," said Horne.

When asked if the Arizona state legislature will be taking any action to support the legal defense, Horne replied, "I believe they will be moving to intervene and hire their own lawyer to help defend the case."

Horne said he has not discussed the case with Mayes nor did he wish to express an opinion on her decision not to defend the law.

"But I can talk about the reason I am defending the lawsuit," Horne said. "There have been a lot of news stories about girls who take their sports very seriously. They work very hard and they want to excel. Some of them hope they can get college scholarships for excelling in their sports and they how devastated they are when they find out they can't excel because they have to compete against biological boys who have greater muscle mass and greater bone structure."

The Grand Canyon Times reported earlier this month that Arizona is one of 21 states to ban boys from playing  girls’ high school sports. 

As of publication time, there are 29 states that still allow boys to participate in girls’ high school sports: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.      

Horne said he finds it difficult to understand why more people aren't sympathetic with athletes who are biological females.

"If there is a situation where boys do not have an advantage over girls, then we should have co-ed teams," he said. "The only reason we divide sports between boys' sports and girl's sports is because boys have an advantage."

The issue of gender dysphoria and school sports hasn't been limited to high school. In March 2022, University of Pennsylvania male swimmer Will "Lia" Thomas won the women's NCAA swimming championship in the 500-yard freestyle.

University of Kentucky swimmer Riley Gaines, who tied with Thomas in the 200-meter freestyle event at those NCAA championships, called Thomas a “cheat.”

“Lia Thomas is not a brave, courageous woman who EARNED a national title,” Gaines tweeted. “He is an arrogant, cheat who STOLE a national title from a hardworking, deserving woman. The @ncaa is responsible.”

There has been rapid growth in diagnoses of "gender dysphoria" in recent years, with a Reuters analysis of Medicaid findings that 42,000 children and teens in the U.S. received a diagnosis in 2021 – nearly triple the amount from 2017. 

"Overall, the analysis found that at least 121,882 children ages 6 to 17 were diagnosed with gender dysphoria from 2017 through 2021," Reuters said.

A 2016 review in the Journal of Adolescent Health called children with gender dysphoria "singularly vulnerable" due to high rates of depression, self-harm and even suicide. The American Psychiatric Association's "Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders" says children are not fully capable of understanding what it means to be a man or a woman, adding that most questioning their biological sex eventually come to accept it and stop "identifying" as the opposite one.