On March 3, 2025, OutFront Minnesota, the state’s largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, held a rally in the Capitol Rotunda to show support for the trans community ahead of a House vote on HF12, a bill that would have banned trans girls from K-12 sports.
Transcript
ANCHOR: You're listening to North Star Stories: Voices from Where We Live, a daily newscast about what it means to live in Minnesota.
Britt Aamodt: March 3rd, the same day the US Senate blocked a bill to ban trans athletes from girl's and women's school sports teams nationally, a similar scenario was playing out at the state level in the Minnesota Capitol.
[Sound Element: Audio from Capitol rally]
The Minnesota House Republicans were the sponsors of HF12, known as the Preserving Girls Sports Act. Ahead of that evening's House vote, opponents of the bill gathered in the Capitol Rotunda. The 2pm rally was their chance to push back against the rhetoric that said that trans girl athletes should be banned because they would unfairly outperform and potentially injure their teammates. Hannah Edwards is the mother of a trans daughter.
Hannah Edwards: She did track in middle school, and I always laughed because she was last every single time. And so I always thought it would be funny to have someone come and watch her race and see the trans girl get last place, but still have lots of fun.
Britt Aamodt: Edwards is also the executive director of Transforming Families, a support group for trans and non-binary youth and their parents and caregivers. She didn't think HF12 was going to pass in Minnesota. But lately, she's been talking to families that want to move here from states where legislation harmful to the trans community has already become law.
Hannah Edwards: We're seeing people flee here, you know, people saying, "I'm coming in May, I'm coming in July. We're trying to get there as quickly as we can." Some of them saying, you know, "I'm sending my child ahead of time to live with friends and family, and I'll be there as soon as we sell our house." So, people are literally uprooting their lives for the safety we have here in Minnesota.
Britt Aamodt: Kat Rohn does not want to see that hard-earned and sometimes precarious safety stripped away.
Kat Rohn: Folks in this moment are feeling genuinely afraid of what's happening, especially at a national level, and really hurt by the conversations and the ways in which folks are talking about our lives and experiences as a community.
Britt Aamodt: Rohn is executive director of OutFront Minnesota, the state's largest LGBTQ+ advocacy organization, which put together this rally. The importance of holding the event at the Capitol, they said, was to show the support Minnesotans have for their trans youth, and to refocus the narrative away from politics and back to people.
Kat Rohn: So often these debates are, you know, on policy talking points. And really, we want to show folks that these are real lives that people care about and that there's a lot of joy in being part of the LGBTQ community, in supporting your friends and neighbors and standing up to bullies. I think that the Minnesota House, sadly, as part of this national conversation, is trying to advance a set of talking points instead of advancing bills that will actually get passed. You know, we have seen so many states, and certainly at a federal level, these discussions around trans sports become this sort of lightning rod of culture-war battles, and, you know, I think it really just misses the mark on what legislatures can be focused on.
[Sound Element: Audio from Capitol rally]
Britt Aamodt: Hundreds of people crowded the Rotunda and the space outside the House chambers. They chanted their support. They waved signs with sayings like "Trans kids, you are loved," "You belong here" and "Let kids play."
That night, after a two-hour debate, the bill failed to pass the House by one vote, with every Republican voting for it and every Democrat against it. Trans girls can still play sports in Minnesota. But in the current political climate, this likely will not be the last time the trans community is targeted. Still, OutFront Minnesota's Kat Rohn says Minnesotans, not politicians, have the final say in how we treat each other.
Kat Rohn: What really matters at the end of the day is the culture. And every community can take that culture into their own hands and shape it in the ways that they want. And so communities that are going to be safe and affirming and supportive are going to do that no matter what the federal government says. Our goal is to keep moving culture forward in a way that welcomes and includes all of us.
Britt Aamodt: This is Britt Aamodt for North Star Stories.
ANCHOR: North Star Stories is produced by AMPERS, diverse radio for Minnesota's communities, with support from the McKnight Foundation and the State of Minnesota. Online at ampers.org.