Transgender girl can qualify for state track championships, PIAA says, citing judge’s order

By: Chris Harlan
Friday, May 16, 2025 | 3:15 PM

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The PIAA will let a transgender girl compete in the state track and field championships next week if the Eastern Pennsylvania student qualifies, the PIAA’s top administrator said Friday.

The state association for high school athletics changed its policy in February to classify students by “sex” rather than “gender” in compliance with a Trump administration order banning transgender athletes from girls sports. However, PIAA executive director Bob Lombardi said Friday the PIAA will instead comply with a federal judge’s order allowing a Plymouth Whitemarsh sprinter to participate as a girl.

“We are in active litigation, so I’m limited in what I can tell you,” Lombardi said on a video conference call with reporters. “(U.S. District) Judge (Wendy) Beetlestone on March 4 denied a temporary restraining order to deny that young person from continuing to compete. So that student by court order is allowed to compete. We will not violate the court order.”

The PIAA championships are May 23-24 at Shippensburg.

Beetlestone in March denied a request for an injunction filed by the parent of a Quakertown athlete, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Plymouth Whitemarsh and Quakertown are members of PIAA District 1, which includes suburban Philadelphia schools.

According to the Inquirer, the transgender athlete’s mother, Sarah Hansen, appeared before the PIAA board in March to speak out against changes made to the PIAA transgender policy. The newspaper also reported that a lawyer with the Education Law Center read a statement on behalf of Plymouth Whitemarsh senior Luce Allen, noting how Allen was “one of the few openly trans athletes in high school sports.”

“If you remove the ability of trans people to compete with a team that corresponds with their gender, then you’ll strip them of their opportunity to develop as people,” Allen said in the statement, according to the Inquirer, adding that “trans athletes, like any other high school athlete, are just kids who want to compete.”

The PIAA District 1 track championships are Friday and Saturday. The top five finishers in each Class 3A event and all athletes who meet the PIAA qualifying standard will advance to the state meet.

Allen’s personal best in the 200 meters — 25.20 seconds — ranked tied for seventh in PIAA District 1 entering the championship meet. The state qualifying time is 25.60.

“If they qualify, they qualify,” Lombardi said. “We will handle them like any other student based upon the decision of the court.”

The PIAA also was targeted in an ongoing federal lawsuit filed by Quakertown parent Holly Magalengo and her daughter. The lawsuit said that being forced to compete against a transgender opponent violated the student’s constitutional rights, according to the Inquirer.

The PIAA board in February made changes to its transgender policy to comply with an executive order signed Feb. 5 by President Donald Trump, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports.”

The PIAA eliminated a one-sentence transgender athlete policy from its handbook and changed language to no longer ask member schools to determine those students’ “gender” but rather their “sex.”

Lombardi said it was too soon to say whether the PIAA board needed to revisit its policy.

“I think it’s premature to make that judgment since we don’t know the outcome of the legal case,” he said.

Chris Harlan is a TribLive reporter covering sports. He joined the Trib in 2009 after seven years as a reporter at the Beaver County Times. He can be reached at charlan@triblive.com.