Put biology back in Minnesota girls’ sports

Minnesota’s high school sports league should write biological sex into its eligibility bylaw for girls’ sports and let its member schools vote on it. At the league board’s Oct. 8 meeting, Anoka-Hennepin School Board member Linda Hoekman made the demand plainly: “I’m just asking you to follow the process and let your member schools decide.”^{1, 2}

On Oct. 15, Make It Fair Minnesota (@MakeItFairMN) pointed to a Title IX memento at the league’s headquarters: “This Title IX memento hangs in MSHSL headquarters.” The same post listed the league’s board contact page and told readers to remind the board: “Remind the 4 women and 18 men on today’s Board.”³ The league’s own board page says the Board of Directors “is the governing body of the MSHSL and consists of 22 representatives from a variety of regions and organizations.”⁴ A plaque on the wall does not write a bylaw. The board does.

“I’m just asking you to follow the process and let your member schools decide.”

The amendment bases sports on biological sex

Four speakers backed an amendment that would make biological sex the rule for participation in sex-separated high school sports, putting the eligibility question before the board, Alpha News reported.

MSHSL Executive Director Erich Martens described the change as an amendment to the league’s existing age-and-sex bylaw, one that would make “sex-separated sports be based on biological sex only.”¹ That is a rule about eligibility, written into the document that governs every member school.

One speaker argued that the athletic advantages of being male do not go away with a person’s beliefs, hormones or surgery: “Being male produces advantages in strength, speed, skeletal structure and endurance that do no not disappear with one’s beliefs about himself, hormones or surgery.”¹ Those advantages are the reason the girls’ category exists, and the bylaw should say so in plain words.

Girls’ sports need sex-based eligibility

The federal government has already said where it stands. Executive Order 14201, signed Feb. 5, 2025, is the federal record on this question. It states that the policy of the United States is to rescind federal funds from educational programs that allow males to compete in women’s sports⁵.

On Sept. 23, 2026, Carly Smolak testified that women’s sports are not for castrated males, chemical or otherwise, nor for men who claim they don’t “feel like men.” Her summary was short: “Women’s sports are for females. Only.”⁶

A category that admits males is not a girls’ category, whatever the league chooses to call it.

Ellison’s opinion should not stop a vote

Attorney General Keith Ellison’s February 2025 opinion says that Minnesota law requires biological boys to be able to participate in female sports¹. An attorney general’s reading of state law does not replace the league’s own vote on its own bylaw.

Anoka-Hennepin School Board member Zach Arco told the league that the process runs regardless of the outcome: “Perhaps most schools will oppose this amendment. Perhaps most schools will support it. But neither outcome eliminates the process.” Arco also said how the Minnesota Human Rights Act interacts with the Supreme Court’s new decision “remains a question for the courts.”¹

Arco is right that the courts will settle that question, and that is the reason the league should not hand its eligibility rule to an opinion while the courts decide. Ellison’s opinion is not a vote of the member schools.

The league must let member schools vote

Alpha News reported that the amendment had cleared its first threshold, receiving support from five member schools. Brainerd’s school board voted 6-0 on Sept. 21 for continued review through the league’s process¹.

MSHSL must distribute the final language to member schools before the regional committees can vote. Nine of the 16 region committee votes must be in favor for the amendment to advance to the full Representative Assembly in May¹.

Parents should contact the MSHSL board and ask one question: will the amendment reach the region committees on schedule? Then they should watch the region votes and count the nine it takes to send it to May.

Sources

1. Supporters urge MSHSL to advance amendment restricting girls' sports t
2. @AlphaNews on X, 2026-10-13: Supporters urge MSHSL to advance amendment restricting girls' sports to biological females: 'Do the right thing' Four speakers addressed the Minnesota State High School League board in support of a proposed amendment that would base participation in sex-separat, 2026-10-13
3. @MakeItFairMN on X, 2026-10-15: This Title IX memento hangs in MSHSL headquarters. Remind the 4 women and 18 men on today’s Board that SCOTUS reaffirmed in 2026 that biology-based sports is NOT gender identity discrimination. Fix MN girls’ sports policy! Contact: https://www.mshsl.org/cont, 2026-10-15
4. Board of Directors | MSHSL
5. Federal Register, 90 FR 9279
6. 2026-09-23 Testimony Smolak