Judge upholds Nassau County’s ban on transgender athletes in women’s sports

Nassau County’s ban on transgender athletes from competing on women’s sports teams in county-owned facilities was upheld Monday by a state Supreme Court judge.

Justice Bruce Cozzens ruled that Nassau’s law is legal and does not exclude transgender athletes from competing on county property and using the restrooms “in accordance with one’s biological sex.”

Cozzens, in his decision, wrote the county’s law is meant to “protect women and girls in sports.”

The justice cited a Tennessee court ruling from last year that allowed schools to separate facilities based on biological sex “without accommodating gender identity.”

“In every community, people tell me this is the right policy to have,” Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who signed the bill into law in 2024, said in a statement.

“They don’t want biological males playing on girls and women’s teams. They feel it’s unsafe, they feel it’s unfair,” he added.

Seth Koslow, a Democrat running against Blakeman who voted against the bill when the GOP-majority legislature passed it last June, declined to comment.