A New York appeals court on Wednesday struck down Nassau County's policy barring transgender athletes from competing in accordance with their gender identity at county-run sports facilities, reversing a lower court decision that had upheld the ban just over a year earlier. The ruling found that the policy, championed by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, violated both the state's Human Rights Law and Civil Rights Law.
The decision overturns an October 2025 ruling by Nassau County Supreme Court Justice R. Bruce Cozzens, according to gaycitynews.com. That earlier ruling had dismissed challenges brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James and the New York Civil Liberties Union, both of which filed separate lawsuits against Blakeman and the county last year, as Newsday reported at the time.
Attorney General James celebrated the outcome on social media Wednesday, framing it as a victory for transgender New Yorkers. “We won our lawsuit against @NassauExec over his unlawful transgender athlete ban,” James wrote
. “Transgender athletes have the right to play on the court or field like everyone else. As long as I am attorney general, no New Yorker will be shut out of public life because of who they are.”
How the Ban Took Hold
Blakeman initially implemented the policy by executive order, and Nassau County legislators later approved it, per the same gaycitynews.com account. The law applied to more than 100 county-run facilities — parks, baseball fields, ice rinks — according to the Newsday report. A separate case brought against the county by New York State was decided the same way Wednesday, with the court siding with the state, the outlet noted.
The policy also drew a legal challenge from the Long Island Roller Rebels, who filed suit in 2024. The roller derby league allows transgender athletes to compete in its women's league, and its lawsuit was among those folded into the broader fight over the ban.
The Statutes at Issue
The legal fight centered on New York's existing civil rights protections. Under Executive Law Section 296(2)(a), it is an unlawful discriminatory practice for covered public accommodations to deny facilities or privileges to someone because of their gender identity or expression, according to the New York State Senate's Laws of New York. A related provision defines gender identity or expression as a person's actual or perceived gender-related identity, appearance, behavior, expression, or other characteristic, regardless of sex assigned at birth, including transgender status, according to a separate section of state law.
Part of a Larger National Fight
Nassau's policy had stood out as unusual even within a national wave of restrictions on transgender athletes. A NYCLU spokesperson told Newsday that Nassau's was the only local ban of its kind in the nation, even as more than a dozen similar laws had passed at the state level. The same report cited the American Civil Liberties Union's finding that 27 states had banned transgender students from playing school sports over the preceding five years.
The Nassau ruling also arrives against the backdrop of a divided U.S. Supreme Court decision in June, which upheld West Virginia and Idaho laws barring transgender female athletes from girls' and women's sports teams by a 6-3 vote, according to The New York Times. That ruling was reported to carry implications for 25 other states with similar restrictions, though it did not address the legality of rules in states like California, the Times noted.
