Advocates for transgender student-athletes marched at Glastonbury High School on Friday to protest a lawsuit brought by a recent alum.
A group of seven people chanted “Protect trans athletes” and “Trans lives matter” on their way to the track where former GHS student Selina Soule once competed. They say she’s responsible for the recent wave of laws that target transgender youth in states like Arkansas and Tennessee.
“This is the track team that Selina Soule came from,” Maren Kuzmak said after the group stopped.
Kuzmak, 19, had a yellow, white, purple and black nonbinary pride flag draped around them.
They brought the group here because Kuzmak hoped the track team, one Kuzmak also was once part of, would confront recent history. Last year, Soule, Canton student-athlete Chelsea Mitchell and Alanna Smith of Danbury sued the governing body of high school sports in Connecticut -- and their respective school districts -- over having to compete against two transgender athletes. A fourth plaintiff, Ashley Nicoletti, later joined the lawsuit.
“She’s the one that launched this national anti-transgender movement. If not her, it would’ve been somebody else,” Kuzmak said of Soule. “But it’s the fact that it came from this town and this town allowed it.”
The plaintiffs sued the Glastonbury school district as part of Soule vs. the Connecticut Association of Schools. District Superintendent Alan Bookman said he supports transgender student-athletes, but he wouldn’t comment on the case.
Attorneys from the Alliance Defending Freedom represent Soule and didn’t comment when reached by Connecticut Public Radio.
The U.S. government under President Joe Biden has withdrawn support for the lawsuit that had been offered by the Trump administration. In late February, a federal judge took up a motion to dismiss, but he hasn’t ruled yet.
