USA Powerlifting has been ordered to permit transgender athletes to participate in the women’s division following transgender lifter JayCee Cooper’s victory in her discrimination lawsuit against the organization.
The federation was instructed to cease all discriminatory practices based on sexual orientation and gender identity and to revoke its previous policy of prohibiting transgender athletes from participating within two weeks, according to the ruling obtained by Fox News.
Cooper filed a complaint with the Minnesota Department of Human Rights in 2019, alleging that the organization violated the state’s Human Rights Act when she was excluded from the women’s division.
In 2021, she filed a lawsuit against USA Powerlifting in state court.
“I was sick of being mistreated, I was tired of the way my community was being treated, and I had had enough,” Cooper told KARE after winning the case.
“Of course, after years of experiencing discrimination from USA Powerlifting and the resulting backlash, I have mixed feelings about the sport, but I believe that this triumph represents a step forward.”
The 46-page ruling states,
“The harm lies in forcing a person to pretend to be someone they are not, implicitly conveying the message that they are inferior. That is the epitome of segregation and separation, which is what the MHRA prohibits.”
US powerlifting has since filed an appeal and has launched a campaign featuring a female Canadian powerlifter who competes in a province where most records are held by biological men in the female division.
US powerlifting president Dr. Larry Maile recently guested on Fox news and explained his stance:
“We are what might be described as a pure strength sport and technique is minimal. There are no appliances. Basically it’s all the person. And so what we look at is how a person does on one of three lifts and in and we ask that very same question that you did, is there really a difference? Because if there is no difference, this may not make a difference in terms of competition.”
“But we looked at 17,000 power lifters and we found that the difference, depending on how you analyze it between men and women, is that women are 43 to 65% less strong than men. So it’s a profound difference.”
He later elaborated;
“…we’re not an Olympic sport. And so at the end of the day, we don’t have to follow the dictates of the IOC. But but that being said, we’re an organization that started more than 40 years ago, and the foundation is in fair play having to do with PEDs and fairer categories for people.”
“And and this is just consistent with that for us. We believe that after looking at the data, it is unfair for transgender participants to be in the women’s division. Then it can’t be overcome. ”