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Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison responded to dozens of school board members urging the state to exclude biological males from women’s sports by saying the issue “doesn’t hurt anyone.”
A letter written by more than 40 school board members expressing support for policy revisions aimed at enforcing Title IX and protecting women’s sports prompted Ellison’s response this week.
“Allowing a very small number of transgender students in Minnesota to play on their school sports teams doesn’t hurt anyone, but segregating them does,” Ellison’s statement read.
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Ellison said this despite the fact that several female high school athletes in her state have spoken out about the impact of the experience of competing against trans athletes, and some have even filed a lawsuit over it.
Three anonymous Minnesota high school girls filed a lawsuit against the state’s education agencies in the spring after having to compete with a transgender softball pitcher.
One of the plaintiffs previously told PK Press Club Digital what it was like to play against the trans pitcher.
“This issue has affected me in ways I never imagined. It’s just unfair, and I hate that nothing is going to change that. Boys shouldn’t be able to take girls’ spots on teams just because they can. I hope more girls affected by this issue speak out against this.” said the player.
Another anonymous player directly called out Ellison for supporting policies that allowed the trans pitcher to play against women.
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Players from Champlin Park and Eagan shake hands after the quarterfinals of the Minnesota girls softball state tournament. (Amber Harding/OutKick)
“It’s really upsetting to know that. [Ellison] does not take the rights of girls and women seriously. It allows boys to compete with girls, which is dangerous and completely unfair. Knowing that AG Ellison fully supports letting boys and men take advantage of women in sports is absolutely disgusting and wrong,” an anonymous player told PK Press Club Digital.
Kendall Kotzmacher, a former White Bear Lake High School softball player, previously told PK Press Club Digital that her loss to the trans pitcher in the state tournament left her in tears.
“How do you acknowledge that you lost to a biological male? How do you process these events that happened? And it was something all night, I still couldn’t do it…we lost to a biological male in a girls state tournament,” Kotzmacher said.
Minnesota education agencies face a deadline The U.S. Department of Education changed its policy regarding trans athletes on Friday. President Donald Trump signed the “Keep Men Out of Women’s Sports” executive order in February, but Minnesota was one of the first states to openly defy the order.
Ellison later filed a lawsuit against Trump and the Justice Department over the executive order, and appears strongly opposed to meeting the DOE’s Friday deadline.
Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced a $60.5 million settlement Wednesday with e-cigarette company Juul and tobacco giant Altria. (Richard Tsong-Taatarii/Star Tribune via AP)
“Exclusion is a violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act, which has protected the rights of trans children to participate in all extracurricular activities for decades,” Ellison’s statement continued.
“I, too, am concerned about the Trump administration’s threats to cut education funding for Minnesota’s children, but this matter is currently before the courts. The federal government’s threats violate the U.S. Constitution, Minnesota law and Title IX itself.
