PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a Quakertown Community High School student who argued her rights were violated by being forced to compete against a transgender female athlete.

U.S. District Court Judge Wendy Beetlestone said the student, who objected to racing in cross country and track meets against a Plymouth Whitemarsh High School student, hadn’t proven she was the target of “purposeful” discrimination — a prerequisite for a sex-based discrimination claim.

While the student, Aislin Magalengo, argued that the inclusion of transgender girls in girls’ sports would “likely only impact girls,” due to “inherent biological advantages” held by students assigned male at birth, Beetlestone said the Equal Protection Clause only prohibits intentional discrimination — not discrimination that could result from a policy having a disproportionate impact on a particular group.

The decision, issued Aug. 1, dismissed claims against the Colonial School District — which includes Plymouth Whitemarsh — as well as the Quakertown Community School District and the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association.

The lawsuit — and its dismissal — come as President Donald Trump has called for banning transgender athletes from competing in women’s sports. In response to a Trump executive order, the Pennsylvania Interscholastic Athletic Association changed its policy on transgender athletes. Colonial continued to allow its transgender athlete to race and defended that decision in court.

Keith Altman, a lawyer for Magalengo, said he plans to appeal.

“We have a basic belief that you compete against your biology,” said Altman, who is based in Farmington Hills, Mich. “The judge is ignoring biology. You just simply can’t.”

Kristina Moon, senior attorney with the Education Law Center, a Philadelphia-based group that advocates for LGBTQ students, said the decision — which also dismissed Magalengo’s arguments that her Title IX rights were violated — marked “a complete rejection to all the claims brought to a trans athlete competing in high school sports.”

“Despite the loud rhetoric” from Trump’s administration, and executive orders barring “gender ideology” and schools’ recognition of transgender students, “this decision shows that is not an easy position to actually win, in court,” Moon said.

Magalengo filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia in January, months after placing second to the Plymouth Whitemarsh student, Luce Allen, during a September cross-country meet.

Magalengo, a senior at Quakertown, said she competed against Allen, who was also a senior, three more times between December and April.

The Colonial School District said it had permitted transgender students to participate on sports teams matching their gender identities since 2019.

Allen was the only transgender female athlete participating in sports at Plymouth Whitemarsh last year, a district lawyer said during a March court hearing. The lawyer, Michele Mintz, said there was no evidence Magalengo had lost opportunities for any athletic scholarships as a result of competing against Allen, who was also not in the running for any.

A Colonial spokesperson declined to comment this week. So did a spokesperson for the Quakertown district, which previously said it had no control over Colonial’s decision to allow Allen to compete.

Beetlestone dismissed Magalengo’s Title IX claims against Quakertown and Colonial, on the basis that Quakertown didn’t have advance knowledge that Allen would be competing in the one race it hosted. Magalengo’s parents complained to Quakertown officials after their daughter lost the race, Beetlestone said.

As for Colonial, Beetlestone said none of the races in question took place within the district, and Magalengo had failed to show the district exercised “substantial control” over the setting.

She also dismissed Title IX claims against PIAA, the governing body overseeing Pennsylvania high school and middle school athletics, because Magalengo hadn’t alleged that PIAA was federally funded — a prerequisite for finding Title IX violations.

PIAA officials did not respond to requests for comment this week.

Before Trump issued his order on “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” earlier this year, the PIAA’s policy had said that “where a student’s gender is questioned or uncertain, the decision of the Principal as to the student’s gender will be accepted by PIAA.”

The revised policy replaced references to gender with sex and also changed principal to school.

The organization also said that schools were “required to consult with their school solicitors relative to compliance” with Trump’s order.

Allen’s parents spoke out at a PIAA meeting in March, with her mother telling the organization’s board that “my child is a female in her heart and soul, and according to her medical labs. Having her play sports with males would be cruel.”

In her decision, Beetlestone rejected Magalengo’s claims that the PIAA’s policies violated her rights to bodily privacy and equal protection under the 14th Amendment.

While the student alleged that allowing transgender girls to participate on girls’ teams also enabled them to change in girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms, she didn’t claim that she had ever shared those spaces with a transgender girl, Beetlestone said.

Even if she had, the judge continued, the Third Circuit previously rejected that argument in a 2018 case involving the Boyertown Area School District in Berks County, where students said they were uncomfortable with transgender peers using restrooms of their choice.

In that ruling, Beetlestone noted, the court found that “the constitutional right to privacy is not absolute,” and because “transgender students face extraordinary social, psychological, and medical risks . . . , the School District clearly had a compelling state interest in shielding them from discrimination.”

Beetlestone also said Magalengo’s equal protection claim failed, because she had to show she was treated differently from members of a nonprotected class — in this case, male students.

“Indeed, the thrust of her Amended Complaint is that she was treated the same as a student assigned male at birth —L.A.— in that they were both allowed to compete in girls’ sports," Beetlestone said.

Altman, in an interview this week, argued that allowing transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports discriminates against boys, because “a boy who identifies as a boy cannot compete on a girls’ team. But a boy who identifies as a girl can.”

Moon, of the Education Law Center, said that at the grade and even high school levels, children’s athletic skills vary greatly.

“The suggestion that... all trans students have some significant advantage just isn’t the reality of young people’s developmental stages and variations,” Moon said.

While she applauded the ruling, Moon noted it’s not the end for legal arguments over transgender students’ rights to participate in sports. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear cases on the issue, including a challenge brought by a West Virginia transgender teenager to that state’s ban on transgender athletic participation.

The debate is also playing out at the collegiate level, where in the wake of Trump’s order, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has banned transgender women from competing in women’s sports.

The University of Pennsylvania this summer reached a deal with Trump’s administration to apologize to swimmers who objected to transgender athlete Lia Thomas’ participation on their team during the 2021-22 season and restore awards they would have won if not for Thomas.

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