Why the case against Utah’s transgender sports ban fell apart — and what comes next – The Salt Lake Tribune

(Francisco Kjolseth | The Salt Lake Tribune) Hundreds of people show up at the Utah State Capitol on Mar. 29, 2025 to fly the largest transgender pride flag in Utah. The unveiling of the flag is part of celebrations for Transgender Day of Visibility, hosted by local nonprofits Utah Pride Center and The Glitter Foundation.
When two transgender Utah girls and their parents sued to stop a law passed three years ago that would ban them from participating in sports with other girls, they were going into eighth and ninth grades, fighting as they entered high school to share in the same pastimes as their peers.
But as they enter their final years of high school, after three years in court and amid President Donald Trump’s second term in office, their case to run and swim with classmates who are their same gender has fallen apart.
Last week, they dropped their case against the Utah High School Activities Association and their school districts in the state’s 3rd District Court.
With it ends the challenge, for now, of the Republican supermajority Legislature’s 2022 law prohibiting students assigned male at birth from playing sports “designated for female students.” And despite the case’s conclusion, questions remain about what lies in Utah transgender athletes’ future.
“They’re devastated,” said Shannon Minter, the legal director at the National Center for LGBTQ Rights — one of the organizations that took on the case — of the two teenage girls, now in their junior and senior years.
“They are the target of so much animosity by the very adults that they would ordinarily be looking to for support, including our president,” he added. “That is a really tough thing for young people to go through.”
Trump has issued a slew of executive orders since taking office meant to restrict transgender rights.
One order signed in February, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” prohibits transgender women and girls from playing in sports leagues and competitions designated for women and girls. It also threatened to rescind federal funds from schools and educational organizations, like UHSAA, that allow transgender girls to compete with other girls.
The Utah attorney general’s office, which represented defendants, later that month asked a district judge to toss the case out, arguing Trump’s executive order had made it moot. Judge Keith Kelly declined, in part, “because there is a reasonable probability that the Executive Order will be overturned in relevant federal courts.”
But Trump’s order complicating the case ultimately played a role in plaintiffs’ decision to abandon it, Minter said.
“It’s really timing,” he said. “Because of the federal development, by the time we could get relief, it would be moot for these plaintiffs. They would no longer be in school.”
Minter continued, “It’s very stressful to be a plaintiff for these cases, so understandably, they don’t want to go through that stress given that it’s not possible now for them to be benefited in a timely way.”
Although the two plaintiffs cannot sue over the law again, ending their case leaves room for future transgender student-athletes to challenge the ban, Minter said.
Early on, the plaintiffs secured an injunction temporarily blocking enforcement of the ban, and triggering the state’s back-up process for vetting transgender girl athletes.
Under that fallback plan, a commission decides which transgender athletes could compete by evaluating a player’s armspan, weight and height — and whether a player is taking hormone blockers. The School Activity Eligibility Commission increased the amount of medical data it requests from athletes to include measurements like muscle strength, lung volume and eyesight earlier this year.
Celebrating the joint court filing agreeing to dismiss the case, the former lawmaker who introduced the sports ban, Kera Birkeland, posted on X, “It is now established law that men are prohibited from participating on women’s teams. Utah recently learned that the commission element is no longer necessary.”
House Speaker Mike Schultz made a similar declaration following the dismissal, writing in a post, “Biological males will no longer be able to compete in girls’ sports, the Athletic Eligibility Commission will be dissolved, and eligibility for girls’ sports will once again be based on sex at birth.”
But according to a spokesperson for UHSAA, what happens next to the commission is not entirely clear. The organization is awaiting further legal analysis and will not be able to make changes to its bylaws until at least November, when its board of trustees next meets.
The Utah attorney general’s office declined to comment when asked for clarification on the status of the commission.
It also is unclear whether the commission is currently weighing any transgender girls’ petitions to compete in sports. Assistant Attorney General Luke Garlock, who gives legal advice to the commission, said in a statement that, in order to maintain the confidentiality of its work, he could not confirm whether the group had future scheduled meetings.
“This question [of whether transgender girls can be barred from playing sports with other girls] is not yet resolved for Utah, or the rest of the country,” Minter said. “It’s still very much in process.”
The U.S. Supreme Court recently agreed to hear two cases related to transgender athlete bans in Idaho and West Virginia.
Last month, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, headquartered in Utah, filed an amicus brief in the two cases arguing that granting transgender people protections under the 14th Amendment “would jeopardize established rights and protections securing religious freedom.”
Over the last four years, Utah has repeatedly passed laws imposing restrictions on its transgender residents, and the most acute effects of those measures are experienced by the youngest transgender Utahns.
In 2023, the year following the sports ban, Utah prohibited gender-affirming health care for transgender minors. Last year, transgender Utahns were barred from using public restrooms and locker rooms that align with their gender identity in government-owned buildings, including schools. And during the most recent legislative session, the state banned transgender students from living in dorms that align with their gender identity at public universities.
According to state-collected data, transgender students are over four times more likely than their classmates to report being depressed and consider suicide three times as frequently.
“The challenge here is not to come up with a policy that works,” Minter said. “The challenge is just to allow people an opportunity to overcome their fears and concerns. And once that happens, there’s no reason for this to be an ongoing controversy.”
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