USA Powerlifting is being forced to allow biological men who claim to be women to compete against natural-born women after a transgender contestant launched a nearly five-year campaign demanding to be allowed to compete in the women’s category.
Trans weightlifter JayCee Cooper began sending demanding letters and suing the sport starting in 2019 after the sports authority denied his bid to compete as a woman. Ultimately, Cooper filed a lawsuit in state court in 2021 and won against the organization based on a Minnesota state anti-discrimination law that maintains he can compete under his “chosen gender.”
“Marsha P. Johnson, and the Stonewall riots, and the plethora of Black trans advocates and activists throughout history—and the way they’ve led this fight—I am just one small piece that is built off of that,” says @JayCeeIsAlive 💚 https://t.co/tGT4A9112Y
— Gender Justice (@GenderJustice) March 1, 2023
Cooper, 34, claimed to have “transitioned” to being a woman in 2014 and that he takes an anti-androgen drug that substantially decreases the testosterone in his body. He claims this would allow him to compete as a woman under Olympics rules, so it should also be good enough for USA Powerlifting. However, he also said that keeping him from competing under his chosen gender violates the Minnesota Human Rights Act.
Late last month, District Court Judge Patrick Diamond, appointed to the bench by liberal Democrat Gov. Mark Dayton in 2012, ruled in favor of Cooper’s attack on USA Powerlifting’s ban on transgender women.
“By denying Cooper the right to participate in the female category, the category consistent with her self-identification, USAPL denied her the full and equal enjoyment of the services, support, and facilities USAPL offered its members,” Diamond wrote in his ruling. “It 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.”
Mikhail Druzhinin/Eye/Em
Judge Diamond gave USA Powerlifting two weeks to change their policies concerning transgender contestants.
“Our position has been aimed at balancing the needs of cis- and transgender women whose capacities differ significantly in purely strength sports,” USA Powerlifting President Larry Maile said in a statement, according to Fox News.
The judge, though, cited an “increased risk of depression and suicide, lack of access to coaching and practice facilities, or other performance suppression common to transgender persons” as competitive disadvantages for transgender athletes.
In 2019, Cooper’s lawsuit also became a focus by extreme left-wing Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who sent a letter to then-Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison demanding that the AG’s office investigate USA Powerlifting for its ban, calling it a case of discrimination, and also said the ban is “unscientific.”
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