Westrom: DFL leaders' brazen defiance of Minnesota female athletes must end

On Monday, March 30, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) sued the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) and the Minnesota State High School League (MSHSL), following through on warnings of legal action against the state for continuing to allow transgender athletes to compete in girls' sports in alleged violation of Title IX.

The DOJ stated that MDE and MSHSL have engaged "in sex-based discrimination by requiring girls to compete against boys in athletic competitions designated exclusively for girls and allowing boys to enter intimate spaces designated exclusively for girls."

Senator Torrey Westrom of Alexandria released the following statement calling for an end to DFL leaders' brazen defiance of Minnesota female athletes:

"While nearly every DFL legislator and Governor Walz is willfully blind to this brazen violation of protected spaces in female sports on the court, in the field, and in the girls' locker room, this federal court case has been long in the making.

"Alongside female athletes and parents advocating for their girls, we welcome this legal action to level the playing field. We have long been fighting to stop the DFL's extreme push for unfair competition in women's athletics and the complicit Minnesota State High School League. The Walz MDE administration ought to know better, but their actions here in Minnesota against girl athletes are abhorrent.

"The very agency we expect to protect our children has been willfully complicit in undermining female sports in Minnesota by removing fairness and adopting uneven competition policies, allowing biological males to identify as girls and compete in women's athletics. The DOJ cited the most recent MSHSL 2025 Girls Softball team from Maple Grove last year, as they were defeated by a biological male pitcher who 'identified' as a girl.

"This patently unfair policy needs to be stopped, and it's time to end the egregious, willful conduct of DFL leaders, MDE, and MSHSL once and for all!"

According to the DOJ, Minnesota receives nearly $3 billion in federal education funding annually, which is conditioned on compliance with Title IX requirements. In September 2025, the U.S. Departments of Education and Health and Human Services notified Minnesota that it must change its policy allowing transgender athletes to compete on girls' teams.

In January 2026, those agencies referred the matter to the DOJ for enforcement action. The DOJ subsequently filed suit, and one day later, seemingly in defiance, DFL Governor Tim Walz issued a Transgender Day of Visibility proclamation on Tuesday, March 31, reinforcing the state's stance amid the federal case.