In 2018, Jaycee Cooper, a man who claims to be a woman, sought to register to compete in the Minnesota Women’s State Bench Press Championship. He was determined to be ineligible to compete because, according to the Complaint filed, USA Powerlifting had a policy that “[m]ale-to-female transgenders are not allowed to compete as females in our static strength sport as it is a direct competitive advantage.”
Cooper’s Complaint alleged discrimination under the sexual orientation provisions of Minnesota’s (since expanded) Human Rights statute which, at the time, was interpreted to prohibit “public accommodation” and “business” sexual orientation discrimination based on transgender status. A trial court partially granted summary judgement in Cooper’s favor, directing USA Powerlifting to revise its policy and to cease discriminating based on transgender status. Meaning, USA Powerlifting was ordered to accept men as competitors in the women’s division if they claimed to be “transgender.”
After an appeal to the Minnesota Court of Appeals, which determined there should be more factual findings and directed the case back to the trial court, the Minnesota Supreme Court determined that USA Powerlifting’s position was, on its face, discriminatory based on transgender status.
The Court noted that USA Powerlifting expressly said that it “do[es] not allow male to female transgender athletes at all,” that “trans women couldn’t compete in the Women’s division,” and that “we do not allow male to female transgender athletes at all. Full stop.” The Court did not accept USA Powerlifting’s argument that Cooper was excluded due to “male physiology” not because of sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.
While finding there was discrimination based on transgender status, the Minnesota Supreme Court determined that there was a genuine dispute of material facts as to whether there was a “legitimate business purpose” defense under one of the claims in the lawsuit, refusing to rule in Cooper’s favor on that claim.
Unfortunately, under a different section of Minnesota’s Human Rights Statute, the Court determined there was no similar defense or exemption and that USA Powerlifting did not identify any statutory defense or exemption applicable to Cooper’s claim for sexual orientation discrimination in public accommodations. As a result, the Court reinstated the portion of the district court’s decision that granted Cooper a favorable decision in his claim of public accommodation discrimination.
In reaching its decision, the Court repeatedly used female pronouns for Cooper, the male litigant.
The case was brought by Gender Justice, which is, according to Minnesota House Representative Harry Niska, a “nonprofit left-wing law firm closely allied with the Walz administration & Minnesota Democrats.” Representative Niska notes that Minnesota’s House Republicans unsuccessfully attempted to fix the State’s “public accommodation” statute in order to avoid such outcomes.
Among other requested relief, the Complaint sought a civil penalty to the State, compensatory damages in an amount greater than $50,000, treble damages, punitive damages, attorney’s fees and a permanent injunction.
Amanda Stulman is a Senior Researcher and Attorney at the Legal Insurrection Foundation
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