N.Y. County Leader Sues AG Letitia James for Threatening Legal Action over Order Protecting Women’s Sports

A New York county official sued the state attorney general, Letitia James, on Wednesday for demanding the removal of an executive order that bans males from participating in women’s and girls’ sports.

Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman filed a federal lawsuit with the Eastern District of New York, arguing the cease-and-desist letter, in which James threatens legal action if the county doesn’t comply, violates the Constitution’s equal-protection clause under the Fourteenth Amendment.

“The defendants’ reliance upon and application of the New York Human Rights Law violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution . . . the Human Rights Law is unconstitutional because it elevates transgender women to a level not recognized by Federal law in the athletics context all to the detriment of girls and women, which are federally recognized,” the lawsuit states.

On Friday, James ordered Blakeman to rescind the executive order that he signed on February 22 to protect female sports. In her own words, she called the order “transphobic and blatantly illegal” because it violated New York’s anti-discrimination laws. However, Blakeman argues it is the attorney general who is engaging in illegal discrimination by violating the constitutional rights of female athletes.

“By this action, the plaintiffs seek to prevent the defendants from doing exactly what it is that they have alleged the County of Nassau and County Executive Bruce A. Blakeman have done: unconstitutionally discriminating against individuals on the basis of gender in the limited and narrow context of sporting events,” the court filing reads.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Nassau County parents Marc and Jeanine Mullen, whose 16-year-old daughter would be affected if the executive order was rescinded. The teenager plays girls’ volleyball.

“As the Defendant Letitia James would have it, the Mullens are being forced into making the impossible determination whether to expose their 16-year-old daughter to the risk of injury by a transgender girl or simply to not play volleyball at all and forego whatever opportunities may present because of her participation in volleyball,” the suit continues.

While James claims the order discriminates against males who identify as transgender, the plaintiffs said this is not the case. Such athletes are only barred from participating in all-girls competitions, not other athletic contests.

The lawsuit said it is unsafe for males to compete with females, pointing to how the clear biological differences between men and women recently affected a Massachusetts charter school’s sports team.

“Just last month it was reported that a girls basketball team went so far as to forfeit a game because a transgender girl (i.e. biological male) injured three girls and the coach felt compelled to terminate his team’s participation in order to prevent further injury to the biologically female athletes by the 6-foot-tall biologically male transgender player,” the complaint says.

The executive order, the first of its kind in the nation, bars female teams with male players from using Nassau County’s sports facilities by restricting the issue of permits from the Nassau County Department of Parks, Recreation, and Museums to any women’s or girls’ sports team that includes one or more male players on its roster.

The order affects over 100 sports venues in the county, Blakeman said at a press conference in late February when he announced the order.

James gave Blakeman until the end of this week to comply with the cease-and-desist notification, but with the newly filed litigation, Blakeman is pushing back against the request.

The attorney general’s press office did not respond to National Review’s request for comment.