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A lawsuit filed by two girls’ high school athletes over a controversy involving a trans athlete in California has partially survived motions to dismiss.
Taylor Starling and Kaitlyn Slavin, girls’ cross-country runners at Martin Luther King High School in Riverside, California, filed the lawsuit in November 2024. They alleged a transgender athlete took Starling’s varsity spot and that they were confronted for wearing shirts that read “Save Girls Sports” in protest. The suit alleges Martin Luther King administrators compared the shirts to “swastikas.”
The defendants are the Riverside Unified School District (RUSD), and included California Attorney General Rob Bonta and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond. But Bonta and Thrumonds were dismissed from charges in the ruling.
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Ryan and Taylor Starling of Riverside, California (Courtesy of Taylor Starling)
U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes, who was appointed by former President Joe Biden, denied the school district’s bid to dismiss the plaintiffs’ Title IX claim based on intentional discrimination. However, Sykes also ruled in favor of the school district’s argument that the students had failed to state claims for violations of Title IX.
Sykes upheld the plaintiffs’ standing to pursue monetary damages, but ruled out an injunction against the school to have the trans athlete removed from the team, because the athlete has already graduated.
The families of Starling, Slavin, and their attorney from the firm Advocates for Faith & Freedom, see the recent ruling as a win.
“I think the fight is far from over but it’s definitely a step in the right direction,” Kaitlyn Slavin’s father Dan Slavin told Fox News Digital.
Ryan Starling, father of Taylor Starling, said that the lawsuit has brought his family together and built solidarity with other families in the area.
“It kind of brought our families together, and it brought a lot of other families together,” Starling said.
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Both Starling and Slavin have continued to attend Martin Luther King High School while the lawsuit has gone on.
“It was a a little uncomfortable, well, a lot uncomfortable early last year… so those first few weeks were pretty intense,” Dan Slavin said. “They have so many friends there that it hasn’t had a huge affect on them this year. It’s always a little awkward when you see the administrators probably, but they don’t speak to much about that.”
Ryan Starling added that teachers are quietly supportive of their daughters, despite school policy.
“There’s been a lot of teachers like, kind of on the down low, let ’em know ‘hey, we got your back’ type of thing,” he said.
Their attorney, Juliane Fleischer, will be looking to get more of the case past motions to dismiss. Sykes ruled that the plaintiffs made no attempt to explain how a Title IX equal treatment claim applies to them, and will allow them to amend those claims.
“It allows us to bolster our complaint, and that’s something we hope to do, just to really target the harmful policy that California and that Riverside have in place that have targeted Taylor and Kaitlyn and so many other female athletes,” Fleischer said.
“Settlement can certainly be discussed, but at this point its a big ask to see what the school district is actually willing to do.”
The famines at the center of this lawsuit have been at the center of a broader cultural movement in their county over the issue of trans athletes in women’s sports.
Last year, after alleging school administrators compared their T-shirts to swastikas, the girls started wearing them every Wednesday, and other students at the school started to join in. Administrators allegedly attempted to punish students who wore the shirts, putting them in detention.
But eventually, the school stopped punishing students for wearing the shirts, and they continued to be worn every Wednesday.
The Starling and Slavin families have also offered council to families at a neighboring school, Jurupa Valley High School, to file their own complaint against the Jurupa Unified School District (JUSD) over a separate situation involving a transgender volleyball player.
JUSD students Hadeel Hazameh and Alyssa McPherson previously told Fox News Digital that Starling and Slavin were inspirations to them in deciding to file a lawsuit over their situation.
“There was a lot of fear with them in the very beginning,” Ryan Starling said of Hazameh and McPherson. “That takes courage… just stand bold. The school districts will not listen to you, the only thing they’ll listen to is when you file a lawsuit.”
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Dan Slavin added, “We did speak to them and their feelings of being brainwashed… it really was nice to hear that our girls inspired them, and I hope it’s a trickle-down effect for everybody. I hope those Jurupa Valley girls now inspire other people.”
Fox News Digital has reached out to the JUSD for comment.
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