Four Connecticut female athletes filed an appeal Wednesday in a high-profile case involving state rules that allow biological males who identify as female to compete in girls' sports.

The four women are challenging a Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference policy that permitted two transgender athletes, Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller, to win a total of 15 state track titles.

U.S. District Judge Robert N. Chatigny dismissed the lawsuit in April in a 29-page decision.

Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the four female athletes, filed a notice of appeal and said it would take the case to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.

"All female athletes deserve access to fair competition; that means authentically equal opportunities to compete, achieve, and win. But competition is no longer fair when males are permitted to compete in girls' sports," said ADF legal counsel Christiana Holcomb. "Males will always have inherent physical advantages over comparably talented and trained girls. Those differences are why we have girls' sports in the first place."

Chatigny, who was nominated by President Clinton, ruled the case was moot because the two transgender athletes have graduated.

"Unfortunately, the district court chose to ignore our clients' demoralizing experiences of losing to male runners, so we have appealed to the 2nd Circuit," Holcomb said. "These committed female athletes - and young women across the country - deserve better. In this particular case, the conversation centers on Connecticut's high school track-and-field program, but something bigger is at stake here: Girls and women deserve opportunities that are truly equal - without being sidelined or dominated by males choosing to join their sport."

ADF argues the participation by the transgender athletes deprived female competitors of opportunities to advance and compete in meets. Further, ADF asserts that the state policy violates Title IX, a federal law that requires equal opportunities based on sex in education.

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