USA Powerlifting Settles JayCee Cooper Lawsuit: What the Transgender Sports Ruling Means for You

# USA Powerlifting Settles JayCee Cooper Lawsuit: What the Transgender Sports Ruling Means for You

> **Quick answer:** USA Powerlifting agreed to pay transgender powerlifter JayCee Cooper a financial settlement after the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in October 2025 that its ban on trans women competing in the women's division violated state anti-discrimination law. The organization acknowledged it broke the law — but explicitly did not change its competition policy. The settlement exposes a growing national legal fault line: state human rights laws protect transgender athletes while Trump's federal executive order bans them from women's sports.

The USA Powerlifting transgender settlement is not just a sports story. It is a landmark legal case about what discrimination means, which level of government gets the final word, and how organizations can simultaneously admit wrongdoing and continue the practice that caused it. For anyone trying to understand where transgender sports law is headed in 2026, the Cooper case is the most important recent precedent — and it raises more questions than it resolves.

## What Happened: JayCee Cooper vs. USA Powerlifting

The case began in 2018 when JayCee Cooper, a transgender woman from Minnesota who was undergoing hormone therapy, was barred from entering two women's powerlifting competitions organized by USA Powerlifting (USAPL). The organization's policy categorically excluded transgender women from competing in the women's division, citing what it described as "strength advantages" related to sex assigned at birth.

In 2021, Cooper sued in Ramsey County District Court with representation from Gender Justice, a Minneapolis-based legal advocacy organization. The lawsuit alleged that USAPL's policy violated the Minnesota Human Rights Act (MHRA), one of the country's strongest state-level anti-discrimination statutes, which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity in public accommodations.