Anti-trans Christian school handed victory by GOP-appointed judges

[Jessica_Rose]

Anti-trans Christian school handed victory by GOP-appointed judges

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/09/anti-trans-christian-school-handed-victory-by-gop-appointed-judges/

Greg Owen (17 Sep 2025)

In a victory for "religious freedom" activists and the anti-trans presidential administration, a federal appeals court on Tuesday ordered Vermont's school sports league to allow a Christian academy to compete, two years after it was expelled from the league for forfeiting a basketball game rather than play a team with a transgender athlete.

Alliance Defending Freedom – the anti-LGBTQ+ conservative Christian legal group that represented Mid Vermont Christian School in the case and is behind "religious freedom" challenges in several other states – celebrated the court's order.

"The government cannot punish religious schools — and the families they serve — by permanently kicking them out of state-sponsored sports simply because the state disagrees with their religious beliefs," said ADF senior counsel David Cortman, who argued the case for the plaintiffs.

Mid Vermont, a K-12 private religious school, had claimed that playing against a transgender student-athlete would have violated its belief that "sex is God-given and immutable and that God created each of us either male or female."

The Vermont Principals' Association (VPA), which governs middle and high school sports in the state, argued that playing another team does not involve adopting its views.

The Vermont Principals' Association (VPA), which governs middle and high school sports in the state, argued that playing another team does not involve adopting its views.

[Lori Dee]

Sex and religion have nothing to do with basketball.

They were not banned from the league because of their religious beliefs; they were banned because they refused to play. If you forfeit, you lose. Refuse to play, and you are done. Go away.