A trans powerlifter in Minnesota scored a victory on Wednesday in her years-long battle with USA Powerlifting over her participation in the sports federation’s competitions.

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that barring trans powerlifter JayCee Cooper from women’s competitions was discriminatory on its face and in violation of Minnesota’s Human Rights Act.

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The justices sent part of the case back to a lower court to determine if USA Powerlifting had a legitimate business interest in discriminating against Cooper, a carve-out in the state’s anti-discrimination laws.

USA Powerlifting claimed they were “seeking to ensure competitive fairness in an athletic competition” under that provision.

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Nevertheless, Cooper’s counsel called the decision a victory for their client.

Cooper only needed to win on the public accommodations claim to prove her case, said Gender Justice legal counsel Jess Braverman.  

“That claim will not be unraveled,” she said.

Cooper’s fight to compete began after she joined the organization as a dues-paying member in 2018. The next year, the USA Powerlifting barred her from competing with women, based on the federation’s policy that “transgender women are allowed to compete in the division reflecting their birth.” Cooper was assigned male at birth.

Cooper sued USAPL in January 2021, saying that its policy violated Minnesota’s Human Rights Act, a law that explicitly forbids transgender-based discrimination.

In 2023, a District Court judge agreed with Cooper and ordered USAPL to immediately stop discriminating based on gender identity and to submit revised participation policies.

USA Powerlifting “separated Cooper and segregated her and, in doing so, failed to fully perform the contractual obligations it agreed to when it accepted Cooper’s money and issued Cooper a membership card,” the judge in the case wrote.

But a year later, the Minnesota Court of Appeals sent the case back to the trial court, stating that there were “genuine issues of fact” about whether USAPL excluded Cooper only because she’s trans or whether the organization had a “legitimate business reason” for doing so.

The case arrived at Minnesota’s high court in December, when USAPL argued that the federation’s decision to bar Cooper from competing “had nothing to do with” her “present gender identity.”

“The reason for differentiation was her male physiology.”

“This is not a mixed motive case,” their attorney said. “The motive here was to separate biological males into a category where they are competing against other people who were born biologically male.”

Hall’s attorney countered, “In reality, treating transgender women different from other women is at the heart of gender discrimination.”

On Wednesday, USA Powerlifting attorney Ansis Viksnins characterized the latest ruling as a split decision.

He’ll get to tell a jury “why excluding a transgender woman from competing in the women’s division was for legitimate reasons, for maintaining fairness in athletics,” Viksnins told ABC News.

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