Three Minnesota high school students are suing Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) over a statewide policy allowing trans student athletes to compete on teams that align with their gender.

According to The Minnesota Star Tribune, anti-trans organization Female Athletes United filed the federal lawsuit on behalf of one student at Maple Grove High and two at Farmington High, both in suburbs of Minneapolis, on Monday, May 19. In it, the group alleges that the Minnesota State High School League’s (MSHSL) 2015 policy allowing transgender girls to participate in girls’ sports created an unsafe and unfair environment for the three cisgender softball players. The trans-inclusive policy, the suit claims, according to The St. Paul Pioneer Press, “expands opportunities for male athletes to compete and experience victory” while cisgender female athletes experience “fewer opportunities to play, win, advance, and receive recognition.”

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The suit specifically cites an unnamed student softball pitcher who the three plaintiffs allege was assigned male at birth. While the plaintiffs say they don’t know what “medical interventions, if any,” the pitcher has received, they argue that it is unfair to allow a transgender girl to compete on a girls’ team “regardless of any pharmaceutical intervention, and testosterone suppression and puberty blockers,” according to the Star Tribune.

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The plaintiffs also claim they “reasonably fear that they could be injured” by the allegedly trans pitcher, with one claiming to have been hit by a ball thrown by the pitcher.

Alongside Ellison, the lawsuit names MSHSL executive director Erich Martens, Minnesota Department of Education commissioner Willie Jett, and Minnesota Department of Human Rights commissioner Rebecca Lucero as defendants.

Ellison has been defending the MSHSL policy in recent months, following a February executive order directing federal agencies to withhold funding from educational programs that allow transgender women and girls to compete on women’s and girls’ sports teams. On February 20, Ellison issued a formal legal opinion expressing concerns that complying with Trump’s anti-trans executive order would violate the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA). And last month, Ellison filed a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration challenging the executive order.

“Minnesota is suing [Trump] and his administration because we will not participate in this shameful bullying,” Ellison said at a February 20 press conference. “We will not let a small group of vulnerable children who are only trying to be healthy and live their lives be demonized.”

Responding to Female Athletes United’s lawsuit this week, Ellison told the Star Tribune in a statement that he would “continue to defend the rights of all students to play sports with their friends and peers.”

Ellison noted the many benefits of participating in school sports that would be denied to trans girls if they were to be banned from participating on teams that match their gender identity.

“In addition to getting exercise and the fun of competition, playing sports comes with so many benefits for young people,” Ellison said. “You build friendships that can last a lifetime, you learn how to work as part of a team, and you get to feel like you belong. I believe it is wrong to single out one group of students, who already face higher levels of bullying and harassment, and tell these kids they cannot be on the team because of who they are.”

Similarly, state Rep. Leigh Finke, a member of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the state’s only out trans legislator, expressed concern that “students are taking other students to court to keep them from playing, given what we know about playing sports and the health and social and societal benefits.”

“Hopefully this will be struck down and we move on, and kids who are already playing can continue to play,” Finke told the Star Tribune.

Asked about the lawsuit, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights told the Star Tribune it would also “respond in court,” noting that the MHRA “is one the strongest civil rights laws in the country and protects every Minnesotan from discrimination.”

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