A Minnesota judge has ordered USA Powerlifting to allow male-born athletes who identify as female to compete in the women’s category, a victory for the transgender movement and defeat for advocates of single-sex sports.
Ramsey County District Court Judge Patrick C. Diamond gave USA Powerlifting two weeks to revise its policies and cease its “unfair discriminatory practices” after ruling in favor of JayCee Cooper, a lifter who was barred in 2019 from women’s events after transitioning from male to female.
USA Powerlifting responded to the complaint in 2021 by adding a third category called MX for all lifters, male and female, but Judge Diamond said forbidding athletes from competing based on their gender identity violates the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
“Just as it does not matter that one may be able to purchase a beer at a saloon other than one that refuses service to people of color, it does not matter that Cooper could compete somewhere else or as someone else,” Judge Diamond said in the 46-page decision Monday granting summary judgment.
“The harm is in making a person pretend to be something different, the implicit message being that who they are is less than,” the ruling said. “That is the very essence of separation and segregation and it is what the MHRA prohibits.”
Gender Justice, which represents Cooper, called it “a huge win today for transgender rights in sports.”
“USA Powerlifting’s ban on transgender athletes is not only illegal, it’s also rooted in outdated gender stereotypes that harm all women athletes,” said Gender Justice attorney Jess Braverman. “Gender Justice will always work to make sure sports teams and federations value the rights and dignity of all women by fighting for trans women athletes’ right to compete.”
Cooper said: “I jumped through every hoop, cleared every hurdle to be able to compete with USA Powerlifting, but was met with a retroactive ban on trans athletes.”
“With Gender Justice on my side, I fought as hard as I could to ensure that every trans athlete has the opportunity to compete, and be recognized with full dignity and humanity,” Cooper said in a statement.
Lawrence J. Maile, president of USA Powerlifting, said the group is “considering all of our options, including appeal.”
“Our position has been aimed at balancing the needs of cis- and transgender women, whose capacities differ significantly in purely strength sports,” Maile told The Washington Times in an email. “We have received a summary judgment decision from the Court finding us liable for discrimination. We respectfully disagree with the Court’s conclusions.”
Opponents of allowing male-born athletes in women’s sports based on gender identity urged the sports organization to fight the decision.
“This ruling is a denial of scientific fact and a grave injustice against female athletes in America,” the Independent Council on Women’s Sports said in a statement. “The Court concluded the scientific evidence of physical competitive male advantage is merely the USAPL’s ‘belief.’ They suggest a person’s emotional state and personal beliefs are more influential than measurable, biological, sex differences that create a 30% advantage for male weightlifters.”
The council cited British developmental biologist Emma Hilton, who said last year that in international competitions, males lift 30% more than females in the squat and the deadlift, and 60% more in the bench press.
“It is insulting to women to suggest this vast performance gap difference is something that can be attributed to better ‘coaching and practice facilities,’” said the council, which goes by ICONS Women.
The decision comes with courts taking up the issue of fairness versus diversity in women’s sports as states move to prohibit biological males from competing in female scholastic athletics. Eighteen states have passed such laws since 2020.
In January, a federal judge in West Virginia ruled in favor of the state’s 2021 Save Women’s Sports Act, finding that “biological males are not similarly situated to biological females for purposes of athletics.”
The women’s council said that Judge Diamond’s ruling “does not reflect the changing momentum in the judicial system across the country ruling in favor of sex-based sport categories in athletics.”
JayCee Cooper became involved in powerlifting post-transition in 2017, but was told in a 2018 email by USPL’s medical director that “Male-to-female transgenders are not allowed to compete as females in our static strength sport as it is a direct competitive advantage.”
Cooper, who was taking the testosterone-reducing drug spironolactone, continued to compete in contests run by Open Powerlifting, capturing first place in five championship events in 2019. The group’s website listed Cooper’s age as 34 in April 2022.
The Minnesota law prohibits discrimination based on a host of characteristics, including sexual orientation and sex, but does not mention gender. Even so, the judge found that USAPL violated the law, citing previous court rulings equating sex with gender.
They included the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which stated in its ruling against employment discrimination that “it is impossible to discriminate against a person for being homosexual or transgender without discriminating against that individual based on sex.”
Those cheering the decision included Cheryl Reeve, head coach of the WNBA Minnesota Lynx.
“Transgender exclusion pits women athletes against one another, reinforces the harmful notion that there is only one right way to be a woman and distracts us from the real threats to women’s sports,” she said Wednesday in an op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
Judge Diamond scheduled a trial on damages for May 1.
