PHOENIX — State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne is further defending a lawsuit challenging the state law that prohibits biological boys from playing on girls’ teams.
Horne submitted a formal legal response to the lawsuit last week.
“This case turns on one crucial fact: can plaintiffs prove that pre-puberty boys have no sports advantage over girls? They cannot,” the response reads.
A press conference on the matter was held Wednesday. Watch the full video in the player below:
“I have sympathy for anybody who feels trapped in the wrong body, but I don’t believe that biological boys should be playing against girls,” Horne said. “If there really are no differences between males and females then all sports would already be co-ed.”
RELATED: Transgender girls go to court over Arizona school sports ban
Last month, the parents of two transgender girls in Arizona filed a lawsuit challenging a year-old state law banning trans girls from participating in school sports.
"The ban's exclusion of plaintiffs from participating in school sports because they are transgender denies them equal treatment under the law," attorneys wrote in the 21-page complaint.
The attorneys also argued the law violates the Equal Protection Clause under the U.S. Constitution and Title IX.
Horne, who is a defendant in the challenge, called the lawsuit's logic "backwards." It's about fairness, he added at the time.
"Title IX was aimed at giving girls equal opportunities for playing sports. When a biological boy plays in a girls' sport, it disadvantages the girls," Horne told The Associated Press. "There have been lots of news stories about girls who worked hard to excel at their sports, found they could not when they had to compete against biological boys and were devastated by that."
