The Trump administration on Monday targeted Minnesota schools, saying they have violated federal law by allowing transgender girls to play sports with their peers. 

Minnesota is not the first state to be targeted by the administration over trans girls in sports, but the move came as the administration confronts backlash to the increasingly unpopular wave of immigration enforcement action focused in the state. 

On Monday, a joint announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Education said the agencies had notified the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) that it had failed to comply with Title IX by allowing transgender girls to compete in sports aligning with their gender. The letter also takes aim at the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL). 

“The joint finding determined that, over the course of several years, MDE and MSHSL allowed male athletes to compete on the girls’ Alpine ski team, the girls’ Nordic skiing team, the girls’ lacrosse team, the girls’ track and field team, the girls’ volleyball team, and the girls’ fastpitch softball team,” HHS said in a statement.

Twenty-seven states ban transgender girls from competing with other girls in K-12 and college sports. Minnesota isn’t one of them. The Trump administration has tried to use levers at its disposal — including threatening to withhold federal funding — to force states to ban transgender girls. Last March, HHS concluded that Maine violated Title IX by allowing transgender girls to compete in sports that aligned with their gender. The Department of Education made the same conclusion about California last year. 

In a media release, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said his agency will not look the other way while Minnesota violates Title IX, misgendering trans women in his statement.

“When states allow males to compete in girls’ sports, they deny young women and girls the protections the law guarantees,” he said. “After Minnesota refused to comply, we referred this case to the Department of Justice for enforcement.”

The Trump administration is facing massive political blowback for immigration actions in Minnesota and the shooting death of a second protester, Alex Pretti. The case against Minnesota dates back to September 30. When asked if the timing of the announcement was part of a retaliatory campaign against the state, HHS Press Secretary Emily G. Hilliard said in a statement to The 19th that the claim is “simply absurd.” He added: “As the press release makes clear, HHS initiated a compliance review in June 2025. Minnesota has repeatedly refused to comply with Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 by allowing males to compete in girls’ sports and to access female-only facilities.”

HRC Communications Director Laurel Powell said the administration is using children as collateral damage to advance hateful attacks on transgender people. 

“The Trump Administration continues to rely on blatant federal overreach and petty bullying to steamroll states into complying with their discriminatory agenda,” Powell said. “While their untrained, unrestrained, violent ICE agents brutalize Minneapolis, they are demonstrating the depths they’re willing to sink to by threatening this enforcement action and defying the democratic systems designed to protect us from tyranny.”