{"id":31763,"date":"2026-05-04T12:38:51","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:38:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?p=31763"},"modified":"2026-05-04T12:38:51","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T16:38:51","slug":"vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy","title":{"rendered":"Vermont to Pay Christian School Over $500K After Banning it Over Transgender Player Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Alliance Defending Freedom \/ YouTube<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A Vermont Christian school has won a big settlement two years after it was banned from all sports and academic competitions. The trouble began in February 2023 when Mid Vermont Christian forfeited a girls\u2019 basketball game against a girls\u2019 team with a biological male that identified as female. The forfeit knocked Mid Vermont Christian out of the state tournament. The school was then suspended by the Vermont Principals\u2019 Association (VPA), which requires schools like Mid Vermont to adopt Vermont\u2019s policy on gender and sexuality. The VPA then sought to have the school permanently expelled from all academic and sport competitions. The VPA continued to deny the school\u2019s request to rejoin the competitions until the school was willing to apply to state gender policies.<\/p>\n

The school hired the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) in November 2023, which filed a lawsuit against the VPA<\/a>, stating it was violating the school\u2019s First Amendment Rights. \u201cWe believe that God created boys and girls differently, and as an extension of that there are physical differences as they grow into adulthood,\u201d the school\u2019s basketball coach, Chris Goodwin, told NTD Television<\/em><\/a>. \u201cThere’s a large advantage for male athletes, and we recognize that there’s going to be competition that ends up being unfair and unsafe for our girls.\u201d<\/p>\n

By 2025, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ordered the school to be reinstated as the case continued. This meant students could again compete in local activities after two years of lost opportunities. \u201cYou know, the hard part was that we knew we had lost\u2026 we lost a couple years of participation. And we had some really good teams during those two years where we would have been, if not winning the state championship, competing for the state championship,\u201d Coach Goodwin said of the lost time.<\/p>\n

The VPA has now settled with the school, agreeing to pay $566,000 in attorney fees and damages. Under the settlement, while Vermont will continue to allow transgender students to play in public schools, Mid Vermont will be protected from disqualifications from state tournaments should it refuse to play against a team with a trans player. Representatives for the school have described their surprise at how aggressively the VPA pushed against the school, going so far as to claim the school was \u201con the wrong side of history.\u201d \u201cWhat matters here for mid Vermont Christian and for Christian schools across the country is that if the government disagrees with a Christian school’s beliefs, it can\u2019t retaliate,\u201d said ADF attorney Jacob Reed. \u201cThe school and its teams cannot be punished for adhering to and following its religious convictions. If they have a game against a girls\u2019 team with a male athlete, they would be able to forfeit that game without penalty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Vermont Christian school has won a big settlement two years after it was banned from all sports and academic competitions. The trouble began in February 2023 when Mid Vermont Christian forfeited a girls\u2019 basketball game against a girls\u2019 team with a biological male that identified as female. The forfeit knocked Mid Vermont Christian out…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":31766,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nVermont to Pay Christian School Over $500K After Banning it Over Transgender Player Policy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Vermont Christian school wins $566K settlement after sports ban over forfeiting game against transgender player.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Vermont to Pay Christian School Over $500K After Banning it Over Transgender Player Policy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Vermont Christian school wins $566K settlement after sports ban over forfeiting game against transgender player.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-05-04T16:38:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/05\/Christian-School_credit-Alliance-Defending-Freedom-YouTube.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Vermont to Pay Christian School Over $500K After Banning it Over Transgender Player Policy","description":"Vermont Christian school wins $566K settlement after sports ban over forfeiting game against transgender player.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Vermont to Pay Christian School Over $500K After Banning it Over Transgender Player Policy","og_description":"Vermont Christian school wins $566K settlement after sports ban over forfeiting game against transgender player.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2026-05-04T16:38:51+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/05\/Christian-School_credit-Alliance-Defending-Freedom-YouTube.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy","name":"Vermont to Pay Christian School Over $500K After Banning it Over Transgender Player Policy","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/05\/Christian-School_credit-Alliance-Defending-Freedom-YouTube.jpg","datePublished":"2026-05-04T16:38:51+00:00","dateModified":"2026-05-04T16:38:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Vermont Christian school wins $566K settlement after sports ban over forfeiting game against transgender player.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/05\/Christian-School_credit-Alliance-Defending-Freedom-YouTube.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/140\/2026\/05\/Christian-School_credit-Alliance-Defending-Freedom-YouTube.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Alliance Defending Freedom \/ YouTube"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2026\/05\/vermont-to-pay-christian-school-over-500k-after-banning-it-over-transgender-player-policy#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Vermont to Pay Christian School Over $500K After Banning it Over Transgender Player Policy"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/e53\/e53f6ea4c6b15081d4df68e2d7d7750ex96.jpg","caption":"Brandy Grenier"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31769,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31763\/revisions\/31769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}