A state appeals court has barred a county from enforcing its anti-trans sports ban while a women’s roller derby league sues to overturn the ban. The ruling comes after a lower court ruled in favor of the anti-trans county earlier this week.

At issue is Nassau County, New York’s ban on trans women participating in women’s sports events held in county-owned facilities. The Long Island Roller Rebels, with help from the New York Civil Liberties Union, sued in 2024 to overturn the ban because their team doesn’t exclude women if they are transgender.

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“This cruel policy sends the dangerous message that trans people don’t belong in Nassau County,” member Amanda “Curly Fry” Urena said at the time. “We hope the court sees this policy for what it is — transphobic and unjust — and makes sure Nassau County is a safe space for trans, nonbinary, and gender-expansive people.”

This past Monday, Nassau County Supreme Court Judge Bruce Cozzens upheld the ban, ruling that “the power differential between individuals who are born male and those born female is substantial and therefore may be more dangerous.” This, he argued, creates “potential liability” for the county. The science of trans sports participation is not clear at the moment, and there are ways that trans women are at a disadvantage in sports compared to cis women.

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The roller derby league is appealing the decision, and by Wednesday, a state appeals court had issued an injunction blocking Nassau County from enforcing the ban as the legal battle works its way through the court system.

Judge Cozzens said in his ruling that the county’s trans ban isn’t discriminatory because trans women care not “categorically excluded” and can still participate in co-ed sports, but the state appeals court said that forcing the women’s roller derby league to compete in a coed division would “change the identity of the league,” make it harder for them to find teams to compete against, and change its status with the sport’s governing body.

Urena said that players were “thrilled” that the appeals court rejected the county’s “transphobic and cruel ban.”

The ruling “made it crystal clear that any attempt to ban trans women and girls from sports is prohibited by our state’s antidiscrimination laws,” said Gabriella Larios with the NYCLU.

The battle began last year with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman’s unilateral decision to bar the county’s parks department from issuing permits to women’s and girls’ sports teams that include transgender athletes.

“They have a competitive advantage,” the Republican official said, referring to transgender athletes. “It’s unfair, and it’s also unsafe.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James issued a cease-and-desist order to Blakeman, saying, “Pernicious discrimination such as this is precisely what New York’s Human and Civil Rights Laws proscribe.” She gave the executive a week to repeal the law before she would initiate legal action.

Instead, Blakeman filed a federal lawsuit asking the court to decide whether or not the ordinance passes legal muster — an effort to delay repealing the mandate.

A New York judge ruled in May that Blakeman “acted beyond the scope of his authority” in issuing the order and overturned it.

The county’s Republican-controlled legislature responded by passing a local law to enshrine the ban, prompting the latest round of litigation, including a challenge to the new law by the Roller Rebels.

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