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A New York appeals court has frozen a Long Island county’s ban on transgender athletes participating in women’s sports at county-owned facilities, although a judge upheld it days earlier.
Despite the roadblock, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, pledged to move forward with the law, passed in June 2024.
“Nassau County will continue to protect the integrity and safety of women’s sports,” Blakeman told the New York Post.
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Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman signs an executive order showing the county’s support for federal, state and local law enforcement officials in allowing masks for specific investigations in Nassau County on July 11, 2025, in Mineola, New York. (Howard Schnapp/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
Blakeman is a former commissioner of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and his brother served on former President George W. Bush’s staff. He defeated Democratic incumbent Laura Curran in the 2021 election and took office the following New Year’s Day.
Last week, Judge R. Bruce Cozzens wrote that Nassau County’s ban was intended to “protect women and girls” and that transgender athletes could still play in co-ed sports leagues at county facilities. However, an appeals court barred the county from enforcing the ban.
The law was introduced by Blakeman as an executive order in February 2024, but was overturned after a lawsuit filed by the Long Island Roller Rebels, a Long Island roller derby league whose president, Amanda “Curly Fry” Urena, competes and is transgender. The Republican-controlled county Legislature then passed a law containing the ban, which the league said violated state anti-discrimination laws.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman speaks to the crowd during his State of the County address, held at the Theodore Roosevelt Executive and Legislative Building in Mineola, New York, March 6, 2024. (Steve Pfost/Newsday RM via Getty Images)
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The state Appellate Division, in its decision, said making the women’s roller derby league co-ed would “change the identity of the league,” jeopardizing not only its status with the sport’s governing body but also its ability to grow its membership and find teams to compete against.
Urena said the players were “thrilled” that the higher court saw Nassau County’s “transphobic and cruel ban” pass.
Gabriella Larios, an attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union, said the ruling “makes clear that any attempt to ban transgender women and girls from sports is prohibited by our state’s anti-discrimination laws.”
U.S. President Donald Trump walks with Nassau County, New York Executive Bruce Blakeman after arriving at Republic Airport on Air Force One September 26, 2025, in Farmingdale, New York. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Blakeman’s ban would affect more than 100 sports facilities in the county.
