Lawyers for transgender powerlifter say Minnesota Supreme Court will hear gender discrimination case
ST. PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Supreme Court will soon hear the case involving athlete JayCee Cooper, who alleges USA Powerlifting discriminated against her because she is a transgender woman.
Gender Justice, the legal and policy advocacy group whose attorneys represent Cooper, announced on Monday that the high court added the case to its docket last week.
Cooper and her legal team allege USA Powerlifting violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act when it denied her entry into its women's competitions in 2018, and denied her petition to allow her to use the gender dysphoria medication spironolactone.
In 2019, Cooper filed and then withdrew a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights, which eventually led to a 2021 lawsuit in Ramsey County. A district court judge ruled in Cooper's favor in 2023.
USA Powerlifting appealed the ruling, which was partially upheld by the Minnesota Court of Appeals in March. However, Judge Matthew Johnson sent the case back to the district court in pursuit of more proof that the organization had indeed barred her due to her gender identity.
"The circumstantial evidence on which Cooper relies, when viewed in a light most favorable to her, is sufficient to allow a fact-finder to draw inferences and thereby find that USAPL excluded Cooper from its competitions because of her sexual orientation (i.e., transgender status)," Johnson wrote in his ruling.
USA Powerlifting says it excluded Cooper not due to her gender identity, but due to her "physiology."
"She was born biologically male and went through puberty as a male, and as a result, she has significant strength advantages over other people who would be competing in the women's division," said Ansis Viksnins, the organization's lead attorney.
Jess Braverman, Gender Justice's legal director, called the state Supreme Court's decision to hear Cooper's case "a promising step."
"Our laws are supposed to protect all Minnesotans from discrimination based on their identity. It is clear that Ms. Cooper faced discrimination specifically because she is a transgender athlete, and we are confident the court will agree," Braverman said.
Last month, swimmer Lia Thomas, a transgender woman, had her gender discrimination case against World Aquatics thrown out by the Court of Arbitration for Sports. The court supported World Aquatics' rules that transgender women can only be allowed to compete against other women if they didn't go through male puberty and their testosterone levels remain below 2.5nmol/L.
In April, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics banned transgender women from competing in women's sports, and said they could still compete in men's programs.