The Minnesota State High School League announced on Thursday that it will maintain its policy allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls’ sports, despite President Donald Trump’s recent executive order aimed at banning such participation. On Wednesday, Trump signed the “No Men in Women’s Sports” executive order, fulfilling a key campaign promise to keep biological males out of women’s athletics.
In an email to member schools, the Minnesota organization stated that the participation and eligibility of transgender athletes are governed by the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which provides protections for LGBTQ+ individuals, as well as the Minnesota Constitution. The League emphasized that, like other youth sports organizations, it is bound by state anti-discrimination laws that prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Consequently, students in Minnesota are permitted to compete in accordance with their gender identity.
Minnesota joins California in disregarding Trump’s executive order. The state, led by Governor Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris’ running mate in the 2024 election, has a Democratic majority. Minnesota has also been the site of a Supreme Court case involving a transgender powerlifter advocating for the right to compete against biological women.
Trump’s executive order was signed on National Girls and Women in Sports Day, which honors female athletes and advocates for equal access to sports for all women. Prior to the signing, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt indicated that part of the rationale behind the executive order was to exert pressure on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and NCAA to adopt similar restrictions against transgender athletes in women’s sports. Following Trump’s announcement, the NCAA revised its policy, which had been in place since 2010, to prohibit transgender athletes from competing against women based on their birth gender.
During the signing ceremony, Trump declared that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem would prevent any transgender athletes from entering the country to compete as women in the 2028 Olympics. A United Nations study revealed that nearly 900 biological females have missed out on winning medals due to competition with transgender athletes. The report, titled “Violence against women and girls in sports,” indicated that over 600 athletes did not medal in more than 400 competitions across 29 different sports, totaling more than 890 medals, based on data collected up to March 30.
