ST. PAUL — The Minnesota House on Monday fell one vote short of passing a bill that would ban transgender girls from female K-12 sports.
After almost two hours of debate, the 66 DFL members and 67 Republican members of the chamber voted 66-67 along party lines on
, also known as the “Preserving Girls Sports Act”. The bill, which was tabled for later consideration, aimed to “restrict female sports team participation restricted to the female sex.”
“While we have been accused of disregarding the feelings of the trans athlete, what about the feelings of the many girls who have had the podium and awards and medals and scholarships lost to biological male athletes?” Author of the bill Rep. Peggy Scott, R-Andover, said on the floor Monday. “Are we to ignore the feelings and actual science and safety of females for a small percentage of biological males?”
The bill defines a female as a person who “naturally has, had, will have, or would have, but for a congenital anomaly or intentional or unintentional disruption, the reproductive system that at some point produces, transports, and utilizes eggs for fertilization.”
If HF12 passed out of the Legislature and was signed into law, it would require the Minnesota High School League to adopt these restrictions for all K-12 girls sports.
“House file 12 is a bill about fairness, safety and preserving girls sports in Minnesota,” Leader Rep. Harry Niska, R-Ramsey, said on the floor. “It ensures that the protections and opportunities created by Title IX remain in place for the next generation of female athletes in Minnesota.”
DFL Leader Jamie Long, Minneapolis, said on the floor that it was hard for him to think of an “uglier bill than the one we have before us today.”
“The GOP could have picked any bill to bring before us today and instead of talking about real issues that Minnesotans are actually struggling with, like the high cost of groceries housing and child care, the GOP is using their time on the floor to bring up bills bullying our youth,” Long said.
Rep. Leigh Finke, DFL-St. Paul, the first and only transgender member of the Minnesota Legislature mirrored Long’s point about targeting kids.
“I don’t think there’s ever been a movement in the history of the world that has been favorably looked upon by history, for looking at kids, determining that there is a characteristic about them you may not like, and cutting them out and excluding them,” Finke said. “That’s what this bill does.”
Mary Murphy / Forum News Service
“We heard a lot about thoughts and feelings, but I didn’t hear anything about particular girls sports clubs or teams that were shut down because of trans participation,” Rep. Andy Smith, DFL-Rochestor, said. “And in fact, as many speakers have already noted, the trans community is a very small member of our population.”
Other Democrats alongside Smith during the floor debate pointed to how the bill would target a small portion of the state’s population. A 2019 Minnesota student survey from the Department of Education found that 2.8% of ninth-grade students reported being transgender, genderqueer, genderfluid or unsure about their gender identity.
Smith also called to attention a testimony from NCAA President Charlie Baker before a U.S. Senate committee in December where Baker said he believed that there were less than 10 trans athletes in the entire NCAA across all 50 states.
But Scott, the bill’s author maintained that girls across the state are being affected by this issue.
“Members, we did hear in committee from brave young girls that came to testify about injuries …,” She said. “Don’t say that it’s not happening.”
Rep. Peggy Bennett, R-Albert Lea, said that she remembers being in ninth grade when Title Nine was passed and she could play on her school’s first basketball team.
Mary Murphy / Forum News Service
“My generation of girls and women and the generations before fought hard for Title Nine to have our own female sports,” Bennet said on the floor. “I want to see what was fought for, maintained … and I thank the generations now. We heard some of those young girls in our committee hearing for carrying on this fight for women and girls, because our bodies are different than male bodies, and we need our own sports.”
If the bill passed, Minnesota would become the 23rd state to have some form of restriction for transgender athletes in sports, according to
and Kat Rohn, Executive Director of OutFront Minnesota, a LGBTQ+ advocacy group.
This bill isn’t the only discussion of transgender rights around the Minnesota Capitol this year. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has filed two lawsuits: one against Donald Trump’s executive order to ban transgender women from women’s sports, and another against his executive order to block gender-affirming care.
Lawmakers have also introduced
, which aims to legally classify women and men based strictly on biological sex, as well as
, a bill to ban transgender women from the Minnesota Correctional Facility in Shakopee.
Mary Murphy / Forum News Service
Before the floor vote on Monday,
Republicans held a rally at 11 on the Capitol Mall featuring athlete and advocate Riley Gaines and a “Round table discussion” at Providence High School.
“These bills I’m supporting are not at all about discrimination. It’s just the opposite. It’s about giving girls and women an equal competitive playing field,” Sen. Carla Nelson, R-Rochester, the author of the bill in the Senate, said. “This is not anti-trans at all.”
Meanwhile, Democrats held a press conference at noon with the Queer Legislators Caucus and a “Let Kids Play” rally outside the floor chamber before the floor vote.
“The House Floor is meant for vetted bills with enough support to pass,” Brion Curran, DFL-White Bear Lake, and Co-Chair of the Queer Legislators Caucus, said at the press conference. “Minnesota deserves better than leadership that wastes time on vindictive crusades while bipartisan bills pile up and real problems go unsolved.”
This story was updated at 8:42 p.m. on Monday, March 3, 2025.