PA Mom Loses Big Transphobic Lawsuit
A January suit against two school districts and an interscholastic organization was just shut down for failing to establish any actual damages.
by Aly Gibbs
In January, a Pennsylvania mother filed suit against two school districts and an interscholastic organization on behalf of her daughter, whom she alleged had been wronged by all three groups because a transgender girl was allowed to race against her and other cisgender girls in cross country competitions during the 2024-2025 season. On Friday, August 1, each of the suit’s complaints was dismissed with prejudice.
Can I get a booyah?
Earlier this year, Holly Magalengo filed a lawsuit against Quakertown Community School District, Colonial School District, and Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association (PIAA) for allowing a trans girl to compete at Track & Field, among other supposed grievances. The suit was filed on behalf of her daughter, Aisling, for (and I’m keeping it simple, here) alleged violations of Title IX and the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protections Clause.
The tl;dr of Title IX is that it’s part of a federal act meant to protect students from discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program that receives federal financial assistance, and it’s frequently been used as a political football over the last decade or so. Whether or not Title IX protections apply equally to transgender students has been a serious point of contention, starting with President Obama in 2016, then Trump just a year later, before more concrete changes were proposed by President Biden after years of prevaricating. Those changes were heavily litigated against, and then rolled back entirely by an Executive Order the second Trump took office in January.
PA falls under the Third Circuit’s jurisdiction. To date, they have been supportive of trans students’ rights, particularly in 2018’s Doe v. Boyertown Area School District, but have yet to issue any concrete rulings on trans student-athletes’ participation in sports. As for the 14th Amendment… well, that’s trickier.
Magalengo also made a request for an injunction against all trans athletes in the state to prevent them from competing in school sports, which Judge Wendy Beetlestone denied for being far too broad… and failing to apply against the transgender girl named in the filing, funnily enough.
Now, Judge Beetlestone has dismissed Magalengo’s suit with prejudice (permanently, unless she appeals to the Supreme Court), essentially asserting that the suit failed to properly identify any wrongdoing on the part of Quakertown, Colonial, and the PIAA. Both school districts explicitly stated that they don’t hold authority over student decisions made by individual schools, and the PIAA has long held that school principals have the right to determine whether or not a student should play on any particular team.
I’m sure Magalengo, who is a devout Catholic, is quite upset that the suit didn’t go her way. Personally, I think that filing a lawsuit against a child for merely existing is a caliber of malice that any decent human being can scarcely comprehend. The trans girl in question does not attend the same school as Magalengo’s daughter, has presumably never shared any private spaces with the cisgender girl, and likely isn’t out there dominating the competition to some crazy extent. I mean, I’m just guessing, but since Riley Gaines hasn’t scraped together a national harassment campaign against the girl, it seems likely that she’s a perfectly average student-athlete.
I’m sick and tired of these petty, vindictive lawsuits against trans kids and school districts, and I hope we see many more losses for these dweebs in the future.
Aly Gibbs (She/They), formerly Alyssa Steinsiek, is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
