By Daniel Stefanski |

Concerned Arizonans continue to take action to defend the future of women’s sports in their state.

Last month, the Arizona Women of Action filed an amicus brief at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in Doe v. Horne. This case concerns a challenge to the Arizona’s Save Women’s Sports Act, which was passed by the state legislature in 2022 and signed into law by former Governor Doug Ducey.

Kim Miller, the Founder and Director of Arizona Women of Action, said, “On behalf of Arizona parents and their student-athlete daughters, Arizona Women of Action strongly supports the Save Women’s Sports Act to ensure the safety and level playing field of female athletics. The facts and statistics don’t lie – the differences between males and females are real, even before puberty, and AZWOA stands with Superintendent Tom Horne and the Arizona Legislators to protect women’s sports here in Arizona.”

In their brief, the Arizona Women of Action make three arguments for the west coast appeals court to consider. First, that “the Arizona Legislature’s findings were thorough and based on sound evidence.” Second, that “the Arizona Legislature enacted the Save Women’s Sports Act for a legitimate purpose and to address a real problem.” And finally, that “the District Court improperly ignored the harm to biological females when biological males participate in girls’ sports.”

Earlier this summer, District Court Judge Jennifer Zipps granted a preliminary injunction against SB 1165, the Save Women’s Sports Act, which blocked the law from going into effect. At that time, Arizona’s Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Horne, the defendant in the case, promised to appeal the ruling, saying, “This will ultimately be decided by the United States Supreme Court, and they will rule in our favor. The Plaintiffs in this case claimed that this only involves pre-pubescent boys, but we presented peer-reviewed studies that show pre-pubescent boys have an advantage over girls in sports. The only expert presented by the Plaintiffs was a medical doctor who makes his money doing sex transition treatments on children and who has exactly zero peer-reviewed studies to support his opinion.”

Joining Horne as defendants in the case are Arizona Senate President Warren Petersen and House Speaker Ben Toma, who have actively filed motions throughout the proceedings at both the District and Appeals Court levels. In a recent motion to the Ninth Circuit, the Republican legislative leaders wrote, “Under the district court’s preliminary injunction order, ‘the [Save Women’s Sports] Act shall not prevent Plaintiffs from participating in girls’ sports’ and ‘Plaintiffs shall be allowed to play girls’ sports at their respective schools.’ Any success by Plaintiffs in try-outs and meets will displace biological girls from making a team, getting playing time, and succeeding in final results. Biological girls will be irreparably harmed if they are displaced by, forced to compete against, or risk injury from Plaintiffs.”

According to Arizona Women of Action, “the district court still has not ruled on (their) Motion to Intervene,” which was filed in June. The amicus brief before the Ninth Circuit lists three parent representatives – Anna Van Hoek, Lisa Fink, and Amber Zenczak. All three ladies have daughters who play sports, which, per the legal filing, means that they are “directly affected by the presence of biological males on girls’ sports teams.” Fink and her daughter shared their belief “that a biological male on their team would have an unfair advantage to be able to get a starting position on the team and achieve similar benefits and advantages. This would create an environment on the team of disunity and corrosive rivalry. Furthermore, if biological males were allowed to play on competing teams, those teams would have an unfair advantage. It would create a strong sense that the competition was not on a level playing field.”

The group’s bio outlines its purpose, which “is to revive the American dream of strong families, safe cities, and thriving kids, with a focus on citizen action in the areas of education, community, life, anti-trafficking and prayer.”

Daniel Stefanski is a reporter for AZ Free News. You can send him news tips using this link.