When the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its recent decisions allowing bans on transgender athletes, the headlines felt devastating. But buried in those rulings was a footnote that matters enormously for states like Minnesota — one that leaves protections for transgender students firmly in place.
Catherine Ahlin-Halverson, a staff attorney at the ACLU of Minnesota, broke down exactly what the court did and didn’t do. The two cases, West Virginia v. B.P.J. and Little v. Hecox, addressed whether laws excluding transgender women and girls from women’s sports violate Title IX or the U.S. Constitution. The court ruled they don’t. But they also specifically carved out states like Minnesota that protect the right of transgender students to play consistent with their gender identity.
“It didn’t address and specifically kind of cabined off states like Minnesota that protect the right of transgender students to play consistent with their gender identity,” Ahlin-Halverson explained.
Narrow Ruling, Big Unanswered Questions
The Supreme Court kept things remarkably narrow. The rulings focused solely on athletics, leaving a whole host of other critical questions about inclusivity for transgender students completely untouched. Bathroom access, locker room access, appropriate pronoun usage, and other aspects of how schools build inclusive environments? All still governed by existing state law in Minnesota.
“The Supreme Court left for another day questions about all other really important questions of inclusivity for students around bathroom access, locker room access, your appropriate pronouns, and other aspects of how schools create inclusive environments that would be consistent with and comply with the law here in Minnesota,” Ahlin-Halverson said.
Minnesota’s Courts Have Already Spoken
Minnesota hasn’t been waiting around for clarity. The state’s courts have already issued some powerful decisions protecting transgender students’ rights to participate in sports consistent with their gender identity. There’s the N.H. v. Anoka Hennepin School District case, which established that students should be included in middle school athletics. And then there’s the Cooper v. USA Powerlifting case, where the Minnesota Supreme Court delivered a unanimous ruling that was historic. Not only did it affirm the right of transgender athletes to compete, but according to Gender Justice the Minnesota Supreme Court found that “Minnesota’s strong anti-discrimination laws must be followed by all “public accommodations” in our state — that includes places and entities like sports organizations, movie theaters, restaurants, and effectively any business that serves the public.”
But those protections haven’t stopped challenges from rolling in. MAGA organizations are going after the Minnesota State High School League policy, and the Trump administration has launched its own challenge to the same inclusive framework.
The Cases Still In Play
Right now, there are two main fronts in this legal battle. The first was brought by an organization called Female Athletes United v. Keith Ellison. FAU claims reverse discrimination, arguing that cisgender softball-playing high schoolers are being harmed by the league’s inclusive policy. Their specific target? One transgender girl who simply wanted to play softball in her senior year of high school.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison defended the case vigorously, and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals — notably a conservative court — found that the state did not intentionally discriminate against the plaintiffs or their members through its inclusive policy. Still, the case continues in district court.
“The question that really the Eighth Circuit decided was sort of slightly more technical. And it was the requirement that they found the plaintiffs had to meet in this case under Title IX, which is the historic law that was meant to prevent sex discrimination in education. The question that they were addressing was, did the Minnesota State High School League intentionally discriminate against cisgender girls when it adopted this policy? And they answered that no,” Ahlin-Halverson said.
The second front involves two cases brought by the Trump administration challenging the same policy, which are also being litigated by Ellison and various school districts.
Can an Executive Order Override State Law?
While MAGA believes Trump can govern through Executive Orders, the courts disagree. The Trump administration has been governing heavily through executive orders, and one of its lawsuits against Minnesota rests on that very idea: a president can just override state law with the stroke of a pen.
Unfortunately, for MAGA and Trump, legal reality is different.
“It’s actually been pretty well established in the litigation that’s come out of the Minnesota State High School League policy, that the executive orders that address gender identity and attempt to overturn all of this law that’s been established both at the federal and the state level are not law that ‘trumps,’ excuse the pun, anything, that our state law stands strong. We have that in an opinion from Attorney General Ellison,” she said.
She added that the Female Athletes United decision reinforces that analysis. But she was quick to flag that the landscape isn’t without risk.
“I don’t think the executive orders do anything to change the landscape in Minnesota, but I do think that there are risks as these cases develop in the federal courts because we see the language that was used in the Supreme Court decision,” she said.
What next?
While the Supreme Court didn’t explicitly invite future challenges to protective state laws, Ahlin-Halverson pointed to troubling language in Justice Kavanaugh’s written opinion. She said his assertions about the impact on kids competing against transgender athletes aren’t grounded in evidence.
“What I would say is that I think Justice Kavanaugh, who wrote the opinion, does make some kind of zero-sum assertions about the impact on kids when they’re playing sports against a transgender girl that frankly are not supported by the facts, the science, and again, really don’t go to what the purpose of Title IX and sports is,” she said.
At the heart of the issue, Ahlin-Halverson said, is a fundamentally flawed framing — one that treats youth sports as a zero-sum game rather than recognizing the real purpose of kids participating in athletics together.
“A lot of the problematic aspects of these challenges, this zero-sum game of sports, instead of looking at what is the meaning and purpose of having our youth participate in activities together and be part of their community and develop and learn, they didn’t really address that issue. That is an issue that I think is still kind of out in the water that may get addressed in these cases as they develop, whether coming out of Minnesota or another jurisdiction.”
For now, Minnesota’s protections hold firm. But as federal cases continue to unfold, advocates and attorneys alike are keeping a close watch on how courts handle the questions the Supreme Court chose to leave unanswered.
