‘We will not allow girls to be denied equal opportunity and basic privacy,’ Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said.
Federal officials on March 30 sued Minnesota over a policy that lets some boys who identify as girls participate in girls’ sports.
The Trump administration said in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Minnesota, that the policy violates Title IX, a 1972 law aimed at preventing discrimination on the basis of sex.
“Because Minnesota receives over three billion dollars in federal funding annually, Title IX requires Minnesota to provide equal opportunities for all students,” the complaint stated. “Yet Minnesota prioritizes gender ideology over biological reality, which means boys claim championships, break records, and invade spaces that rightfully belong to girls.”
Minnesota high schools frequently offer girls the opportunity to play on teams with other females only, including basketball, gymnastics, and soccer teams.
However, the Minnesota Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination due to “gender identity” and enables males who identify as females to join girls teams. Under that law, transgender-identifying boys have been playing in female sports.
In 2025, federal officials warned Minnesota authorities, including the Minnesota Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League, that continuing to let boys play on girls sports teams would likely lead to a lawsuit. Minnesota officials declined to alter their policies.
“The Trump Administration does not tolerate flawed state policies that ignore biological reality and unfairly undermine girls on the playing field,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement on March 30.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said: “We will not allow girls to be denied equal opportunity and basic privacy. Title IX is clear: schools that accept federal funding must protect the rights, safety, and dignity of female students.”
Plaintiffs are seeking a permanent injunction that would force Minnesota to stop letting males compete in female athletic competitions, to segregate intimate spaces such as bathrooms by sex, and to update rules, policies, and guidance to comply with Title IX.
“The Minnesota Department of Education is reviewing the filing and remains committed to ensuring every child— regardless of background, zip code, or ability—has access to a world-class education and every opportunity to thrive as their authentic self in safe, supportive school communities,” a spokesperson for the department, one of the defendants in the case, told The Epoch Times via email.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, a Democrat, said in a statement to news outlets that the lawsuit is “a sad attempt to get attention over something that’s already been in litigation for months.”
A separate attempt to block Minnesota policies concerning transgender-identifying athletes, brought by a female athletic group, was turned down by a federal judge on Sept. 19, 2025. The judge said at the time that the group was not likely to succeed in its case, which held that Minnesota policies violated Title IX.
