The judges said that Trump’s executive orders aren’t law, and trans athletes stay in the game.
Christopher Wiggins at The Advocate (04.15.2026):
A federal appeals court on Wednesday handed transgender students in Minnesota a significant legal victory, allowing the state to keep enforcing a policy that lets high school athletes compete consistent with their gender identity.
In Female Athletes United v. Ellison, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit upheld a lower court’s refusal to block the policy, leaving intact a Minnesota State High School League bylaw adopted in 2016 that allows participation “consistent with their gender identity or expression.”
The challenge came from Female Athletes United, which sought a preliminary injunction barring transgender girls from competing on girls’ teams. The group argued that Minnesota’s policy violates Title IX, the federal law banning sex discrimination in education.
But the Eighth Circuit said the group’s claims were not likely to succeed. Writing for the panel, Judge Raymond Gruender said Title IX does not provide a private right of action for the kind of disparate-impact claims FAU brought here. Instead, the court said, private plaintiffs may sue under Title IX only for intentional discrimination.
The opinion also rejected FAU’s argument that Minnesota’s refusal to follow Trump administration guidance showed deliberate indifference. President Donald Trump has issued several executive orders, which are not laws, targeting transgender people, including whether they can participate in sports.
Great news in Minnesota: The 8th Circuit Court upheld Minnesota’s trans-inclusive sports policies.
See Also:
LGBTQ Nation: Federal court sides with trans athletes & says Donald Trump’s executive orders aren’t law
The No Place for LGBTQ+ Hate Act targets the trans military ban, the "two sexes" order, and more.
Trudy Ring at The Advocate:
U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and U.S. Rep. Becca Balint of Vermont, both Democrats, have introduced legislation to nullify Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ executive orders.
The No Place for LGBTQ+ Hate Act, introduced Thursday, would ensure that Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ orders would have no force or effect and that no federal funds would be used to put them into effect.
During his second term, Trump has issued executive orders saying the federal government will recognize only two sexes, male and female as assigned at birth, therefore denying the existence of transgender, nonbinary, and intersex people; reinstating and expanding the trans military ban; seeking to prevent trans youth from receiving gender-affirming care; seeking to keep trans students from participating in sports under their gender identity; and requiring schools to deny the existence of trans people. Policies based on these orders have been implemented, and most are being challenged in court.
“Freedom is the right to safely live as your authentic self without fear of harassment, discrimination, or violence,” Merkley said in a press release. “President Trump and Republicans are attacking our LGBTQ+ neighbors, friends, and family members by rubberstamping discrimination in every aspect of daily life. As we mark Pride Month this year, we say ‘hell no’ to this hate and honor those who have fought for LGBTQ+ equality by never giving up on the vision of America as a land of freedom for all.”
“Trump cannot take away our rights or our health care just with the stroke of a pen,” Balint added. “I’m standing with Senator Merkley and my colleagues to show the Trump administration that their hate and dehumanizing rhetoric targeting queer Americans doesn’t intimidate us. We won’t back down when it comes to protecting our rights. No matter how much they try to erase us and our history, LGBTQI+ people are valued members of every community across this country.”
Their bill has numerous cosponsors in both the House and Senate, all Democrats except for one independent, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who caucuses with the Democrats. It’s endorsed by the Human Rights Campaign, Advocates for Trans Equality, American Civil Liberties Union, National Women’s Law Center Action Fund, Reproductive Freedom for All, and Planned Parenthood.
Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) file a bill to nullify Donald Trump’s anti-LGBTQ+ extremist executive orders called the No Place for LGBTQ+ Hate Act.
The school thanks students for leading the way when it comes to resistance.
Ari Waller at LGBTQ Nation:
School officials in Maine stated Thursday they will not comply with the Trump administration’s demands to prevent trans girls from participating in women’s and girls’ sports, instead they will “continue to follow state law and the Maine Human Rights Act.”
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) conducted a hasty investigation into Maine’s policy allowing transgender girls to participate in high school athletics. According to HHS, Maine’s Department of Education, the Maine Principals’ Association, and a high school in Cumberland County, Maine, all violated Title IX.
HHS cited Greely High School in the Portland suburb of Cumberland because there was a report of a transgender girl competing on the school’s track team who managed to win a track event.
HHS sent a letter to the institutions on March 20, telling them that they have 10 days to settle the issue by banning transgender athletes from competing on teams matching their gender identity.
The district issued its letter on Thursday to the community, stating it will not comply with the HHS demand because of Maine’s own laws preventing gender discrimination. The district statement also thanked the community for their perseverance
“To our students: Thank you for your maturity, perseverance, and dedication to learning through these distractions. Please continue to lead the way,” the letter stated.
The Maine Principals’ Association also stated they are “bound by the law, including the Maine Human Rights Act, which our participation policy reflects.”
[...]
Because HHS threatened to withhold funding if Maine didn’t comply by March 30 means administration officials will have to decide whether to follow through with their threat and, if they do, the state will have to decide how to proceed.
In the spirit of states’ rights, Mills could end up following through with her threat and suing the administration to keep it from overriding state law.
Maine stood tall against Trump’s extortion attempts to make the state abide by his anti-trans directives.
The committee had previously allowed each sport's governing body to set policy for trans athletes.
Trudy Ring at The Advocate:
The U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee has barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports, complying with an executive order from Donald Trump.
The committee “quietly changed its eligibility rules on Monday,” The New York Times reports, with a “short, vaguely worded paragraph” outlining the new policy.
The paragraph says the committee is “committed to protecting opportunities for athletes participating in sport” and will work with the International Olympic Committee, the International Paralympic Committee, and the national governing bodies of each Olympic sport “to ensure that women have a fair and safe competition environment consistent with Executive Order 14201 and the Ted Stevens Olympic & Amateur Sports Act.”
Executive Order 14201, signed by Trump February 5, opposes the presence of trans women — the order refers to them as men — in women’s sports and threatens federal funding to schools and athletic associations that are trans-inclusive. Trump preceded the signing with a rambling speech filled with falsehoods about trans athletes, saying they have won "more than 3,500 victories" and "invaded more than 11,000 competitions." Neither statement is true.
He also claimed that "a male boxer stole the women’s gold medal" at the Paris Olympics after supposedly "brutalizing his female opponent so viciously that she had to forfeit." Trump was apparently referring to Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, who became the target of bigoted rumors by right-wing influencers who claimed she was trans, although she is not.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association quickly changed its rules to bar trans women from women’s sports, even though only a handful of trans athletes were competing at NCAA schools.
The Olympic committee had previously allowed each sport’s governing body to set rules for trans participation. In a statement emailed to the Times Tuesday, the committee said that indeed, the policy had changed, because “as a federally chartered organization, we have an obligation to comply with federal expectations.” The committee had several conversations with federal officials before making the change. The Ted Stevens Act, authored by the late U.S. senator from Alaska, established the U.S. Olympic Committee.
The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) bars trans women from competing in women’s competitions, putting the organization compliant with Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive order barring trans women from women’s sports (EO 14201).
See Also:
The 19th News: Without public notice, U.S. Olympic officials exclude transgender women from competing
OutSports: U.S. Olympics & Paralympics ban trans women from female sports
In the span of five days in late January and early February, two research teams on two continents published findings that undercut the central empirical claim behind every major ban on transgender women in sports: that prior testosterone exposure confers permanent physical advantages hormone therapy cannot erase. The first, a longitudinal brain imaging study out of Germany, tracked structural changes in 64 trans participants over six months of gender-affirming hormone therapy (GAHT) and found receptor-driven cortical remodeling—the brain physically reorganizing in response to hormones. The second, the largest meta-analysis ever conducted on transgender athletes, reviewed 52 studies and 6,485 participants and found no statistically significant differences in strength or aerobic capacity between trans women and cis women after one to three years of hormone therapy.
Both landed the same week the NCAA’s blanket ban on transgender women athletes turned one year old. The ban covers more than 530,000 student-athletes. When the NCAA’s president, Charlie Baker, was asked by Congress in December 2024 how many of those athletes were transgender, he said he was aware of “fewer than 10.” He called the ban “clarity.”
The brain study
The Hüpen team used surface-based and voxel-based morphometry—imaging techniques that measure the thickness, folding, and depth of the brain’s outer layer—to track what happened to cortical architecture over six months of GAHT. They found distinct, divergent changes in cortical thickness: localized thickening in trans men, widespread thinning in trans women, with both groups converging in the occipital cortex. These spatial patterns aligned with maps of where sex hormone receptors are most densely concentrated in the brain, suggesting a receptor-mediated mechanism—meaning the brain was responding to hormone therapy through its own existing receptor infrastructure, in region-specific patterns.
Improved psychological well-being paralleled the neurobiological changes.
There are some caveats to these findings. As of now, the study has not been peer-reviewed. A sample of 64 trans participants is large for neuroimaging—most prior longitudinal studies in this area have worked with far smaller cohorts—but not definitive. Six months is enough to detect cortical changes, not enough to map their full trajectory. The finding is consistent with prior literature on estrogen’s effects on brain morphology, but questions about long-term outcomes remain open.
[...]
The sports study
The same week, a different set of researchers was looking at a different question: whether hormone therapy changes what the body can do.
The Sieczkowska meta-analysis in the BJSM reviewed 52 studies covering 2,943 trans women, 2,309 trans men, 568 cis women, and 665 cis men, ages 14 to 41. After one to three years of hormone therapy, trans women showed no significant differences from cis women in upper-body strength, lower-body strength, or maximal oxygen consumption (VO₂ max)—the standard measure of aerobic fitness. Trans women did retain higher absolute lean body mass than cis women. That difference did not translate into superior functional performance.
The evidence has real limitations. The studies reviewed were mostly low-certainty and varied in quality. Only 16 of 52 included any physical activity assessment. Only seven controlled for confounding factors like training history, diet, and baseline fitness. Most participants were not competitive athletes. There is essentially no data on elite-level trans athletes.
[...]
The bans preceded both studies by a year. On February 5, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14201, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” directing federal agencies to withhold funding from educational institutions that allow transgender women to compete on women’s teams. The NCAA changed its participation policy the following day—not after a review period, not after consulting the evidence base. The following day. Baker praised the order for providing “a clear, national standard.”
That standard applied to fewer than 10 known transgender athletes out of 530,000. For context: the NCAA has more student-athletes named “Jake” than it has transgender women competing in women’s sports. Baker called the situation a matter requiring immediate national clarity. He did so within 24 hours of being told to by the president.
Since then, according to the Movement Advancement Project, more than two dozen states have enacted bans on transgender athletes in school sports. In November 2025, USA Hockey quietly approved a new Participant Eligibility Policy—adopted in response to directives from the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, which had itself aligned with Trump’s executive order—barring trans athletes from all sex-restricted programs. The ban extends to adult recreational leagues. It takes effect April 1, 2026.
A pair of studies recently released undercut the justifications behind every major ban on transgender women in sports made under the guise of “fairness in women’s sports".
The U.S. Department of Education recently referred its investigation of transgender athletes in Minnesota schools to the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), a critical step to denying the state federal funding as part of the president’s anti-trans crusade. Minnesota is fighting the president’s attempts in federal court.
The U.S. Departments of Education (ED) and Health and Human Services (HHS) began their probes of the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL) in September, Politico reported.
Last October, ED and HHS found the state in violation of both an anti-trans executive order and Title IX “by allowing males to compete in female sports and occupy female intimate facilities.” MDE and MSHSL refused to negotiate with the federal agencies or accept their proposed resolution agreement, leading the ED and HHS on Monday to refer their investigation to the DOJ.
This past February, Trump signed an executive order to block federal funding for schools that allow trans girls and women to participate in school sports as their authentic selves, and the order told the DOJ to prosecute schools that allow trans students to play sports.
Title IX is the federal law that bans discrimination on the basis of sex in education. President Joe Biden’s administration interpreted that law as banning anti-trans discrimination since it’s impossible to discriminate on the basis of gender identity without taking sex into account. That is, banning trans girls from playing school sports but not cis girls, solely because of their sex assigned at birth, is the kind of discrimination that Title IX was intended to prevent, the previous administration believed.
The current administration is arguing that allowing trans girls to play school sports takes away “critical visibility for college scholarships and recognition” from cis girls, who are also “denied awards” if trans girls win.
In April, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced his filing of a federal lawsuit challenging the president’s anti-trans executive order directing agencies to withhold federal funding from educational programs that allow transgender girls to compete on women’s sports teams, under the claim that it violates both constitutional rights and Title IX of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
The Trump Regime has a vendetta against Minnesota, as it seeks to extort the state into giving up its trans-inclusive sports policies.
See Also:
The 19th: Minnesota targeted by federal government over trans girls in sports
The months since Trump’s election have been brutal for transgender people like me. States are churning out laws that strip us of legal recognition, bar us from bathrooms, void our IDs, and more. That should be enough, but 2025 has delivered a different, more insidious threat—one we were unprepared to face. It isn’t just the executive orders banning our passports, blocking transgender visa seekers from entry, threatening teachers with investigations for using our names, or erasing us from federal websites—though those do play a role. The real danger has come from mass overcompliance: institutions, including well-meaning ones, rushing to carry out the administration’s anti-trans agenda without being asked. These attacks began with us, but the consequences won’t end there. The country needs to understand the lesson being written in real time: do not comply.
An Explosion of Targeted Attacks
The first of Trump’s executive orders targeting transgender people came with a loaded title: “Defending Women From Gender Ideology Extremism and Restoring Biological Truth to the Federal Government.” The order declared that sex is binary and fixed at birth and uses rigid definitions of “man” and “woman” that fly in the face of established science. Without statutory authority, it then applied these definitions across all US code—resulting in sudden policy shifts like the revocation of gender marker updates on passports. The fallout has been immediate and destabilizing: some transgender people have had their passport renewals denied or even had documents confiscated, while others are left unsure whether they can safely travel at all. Compounding the damage, the administration has treated any contradiction to its definitions as justification for stripping federal grants—an abuse of executive power that sidesteps congressional authority.
As executive orders continued to cascade from the Trump administration, an expanding list of policies became mandatory not just for federal agencies but for institutions across the country. One order barred transgender athletes from competing in everything from darts to disc golf to dance and threatened to strip funding from any school that adopted local or individualized policies. Another order targeted hospitals, warning that providing gender-affirming care to anyone under 19—including legal adults—could trigger federal investigations and funding cuts. Meanwhile, the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have dominated headlines as organizations scramble to comply with vague and nebulous policies. Many organizations complied under the direct or implied threat of losing critical resources.
The Danger of Pre-Compliance
This last phase of reactionary compliance is where something more insidious began to unfold. Organizations, including those with long histories of supporting LGBTQ+ people, started erasing trans and queer communities from their websites, shuttering resources, and, whether out of fear or compliance, became willing enforcers of Trump’s anti-trans agenda.
The first signs came from government websites. Research papers on transgender health funded by federal grants were quietly removed or retracted. The National Park Service altered language at the Stonewall National Monument, stripping the TQ+ from LGBTQ+ and rewriting history to frame the uprising—led in large part by transgender people—as a fight solely for “LGB rights.” Even the biography for Sylvia Rivera, one of the most prominent transgender figures at Stonewall, was edited. Her section on the National Park Service’s Stonewall page now says she fought for “gay and rights”—a clumsy, ahistorical revision that manages to erase her identity while mangling the grammar. Such attempts to revise history and control language are designed to cleave away would-be allies, a common tactic of authoritarian regimes.
[...]
Many readers have likely noticed diversity, equity, and inclusion resources are quietly disappearing from their workplaces. Corporate donations to pride parades have dried up. Entire diversity departments and programs have been cut. In some cases, companies are scrubbing references to transgender and queer people altogether, fearful that even acknowledging our existence could jeopardize federal contracts or funding.
A chilling veil of silence has fallen over LGBTQ+ people in America—our existence is now considered too risky to even name.
Fear and Uncertainty Breed Anticipatory Obedience
A lesson can be found in all of this. The most devastating damage from these executive orders hasn’t come from their direct mandates but from their vagueness. The orders are deliberately opaque and create just enough uncertainty to push institutions into overcompliance. Risk-averse legal teams, fearful of losing federal funding or becoming political targets, preemptively erase transgender people from policies, programs, and public language. The cruelty lies in the ambiguity. These orders don’t explicitly bar specific conduct but deputize decision-makers to interpret them in ways that inflict the greatest harm on disfavored communities.
[...]
We are, in many ways, teaching those in power what they can get away with by complying with regulations that have no legal basis.
I understand the fear that organizations are responding to. Each individual decision that erases a mention here or cuts a program there can feel rational. Everyone wants to keep their head low, but fear calcifies into cowardice. And cowardice, when widespread, leads to the erosion of every value we claim to hold.
Erin Reed wrote for the Kettering Foundation on the Trump Regime's war on trans people (and LGBTQ+ people in general). The overarching message: do not comply with Tyrant 47's demands.
California "respectfully disagrees" with the Trump administration's position, an attorney for the state said.
Trudy Ring at The Advocate:
California officials say they will not comply with Donald Trump’s order to keep transgender athletes out of K-12 school sports.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon gave the state 10 days, beginning June 27, to sign on to an agreement “to rescind any trans-inclusionary guidelines and send cisgender female athletes who lost to a trans opponent personalized apologies,” The Sacramento Bee reports. The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights had determined that California had violated federal nondiscrimination law by letting trans girls and women compete against cis females. Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 bans sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funds. Democratic administrations have interpreted it as preventing anti-trans discrimination, while Trump's administration is using it to enable anti-trans discrimination.
But California will not go along. “The [California Department of Education] respectfully disagrees with OCR’s analysis, and it will not sign the proposed Resolution Agreement,” CDE General Counsel Len Garfinkle wrote Monday to OCR Regional Director Bradley Burke, according to the Bee.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s staff termed the proposed agreement a “political document” and said it had no legal validity. It would also make the state violate its own trans-inclusive nondiscrimination laws, Newsom’s aides said. California passed a law in 2013 allowing students to play on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
The Trump administration has threatened loss of federal funds to K-12 schools, colleges, and universities with trans-inclusive sports policies, and some have agreed to ban trans athletes, such as, recently, the University of Pennsylvania.
Newsom, usually a strong LGBTQ+ ally, received criticism this year for questioning the fairness of letting trans girls compete with cis girls. Now, with his state standing up for trans girls, he’s catching fire from McMahon.
“California has just REJECTED our resolution agreement to follow federal law and keep men out of women’s sports,” she wrote on X. “Turns out Gov. Newsom’s acknowledgment that ‘it’s an issue of fairness’ was empty political grandstanding.” She said he would hear from U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.
Thank God California isn’t caving into the Trump Regime’s quest to ban trans athletes from sports competitions aligned with their gender identity.
See Also:
Erin In The Morning (Erin Reed): California Rejects Trump's Demands To Enact Full Trans Sports And Bathroom Bans
