October 1, 2026
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Trump administration sued Minnesota and its school athletics governing body on Monday, carrying out a threat to punish the state for allowing male athletes to compete in girls' sports.
More than two dozen states have laws prohibiting athletes born male from participating in certain women's and girls' sports, and some have barred so-called gender-transitioning surgeries for minors. Courts have blocked some of those policies.
In the lawsuit filed Monday, the Justice Department alleges the state Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League are violating Title IX, a federal law against sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal money.
“The Trump Administration does not tolerate flawed state policies that ignore biological reality and unfairly undermine girls on the playing field,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.
Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he'll fight the suit.
The administration has filed similar lawsuits against Maine and California, and has threatened the federal funding of some universities over biological male athletes, including San Jose State in California and the University of Pennsylvania.
Minnesota officials have long resisted the federal push to ban athletes born male from girls' sports. Ellison filed a preemptive lawsuit last April, saying Minnesota's human rights act supersedes executive orders issued by President Donald Trump last year. The lawsuit also says the state is already in compliance with Title IX. A ruling is pending on the federal government's motion to dismiss that case.
The Justice Department said in a statement that Minnesota violates Title IX “by requiring girls to compete against boys in athletic competitions that are designated exclusively for girls and allowing boys to invade intimate spaces designated exclusively for girls, such as multi-person locker rooms and bathrooms.”
To buttress its claims that male athletes have an unfair advantage, the lawsuit highlights the case of a biological male pitcher on the Champlin Park High School girls' varsity fastpitch softball team who helped lead the school to a 6-0 victory in a state championship game in 2025.
The Trump administration also reversed the Biden administration's interpretation of Title IX, which held that its provisions prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex also extended to gender identity.
According to the Justice Department, Minnesota's Department of Education receives more than $3 billion annually in federal funding from the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services. It says that funding is contingent on compliance with Title IX.
The lawsuit asks a federal court in Minnesota to declare the state in violation of Title IX and order it to prohibit athletes born male from competing in girls' prep sports.
The civil rights offices at the Education and Health and Human Services put the state and league on notice last September that they faced legal action if they didn't stop violating the federal law.
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