NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — A New York county’s law banning transgender women from playing on female sports teams at county-run parks and recreational facilities has been halted for now.

A state appeals court on Wednesday barred Nassau County from enforcing the ban while a legal challenge brought on behalf of a local women’s roller derby league plays out.

The decision comes after a lower court judge upheld the local law Monday, and the New York Civil Liberties Union, which had sued on the roller derby league’s behalf, vowed to challenge the ruling.

Judge R. Bruce Cozzens had ruled the county ban was “narrowly tailored” and “does not categorically exclude transgender individuals from athletic participation” as they can still play in coed sports leagues.

But the state appellate division, in its decision, said that making the women’s roller derby league become coed would “change the identity of the league,” jeopardizing not just its status with the sport’s governing body but also its ability to grow its membership and find teams to compete against.

Amanda “Curly Fry” Urena, president of the Long Island Roller Rebels, said players were “thrilled” the higher court saw through Nassau County’s “transphobic and cruel ban.”

Gabriella Larios, an attorney with the NYCLU, said the ruling “made it crystal clear that any attempt to ban trans women and girls from sports is prohibited by our state’s antidiscrimination laws.”

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman had proposed the ban as a way to protect girls and women from getting injured while competing against transgender women. It would have affected more than 100 sports facilities in the county on Long Island next to New York City.

The Republican, in an emailed statement, said the county will “continue to protect the integrity and safety of women’s sports.” A spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to follow-up questions about whether it would comply with the judge’s order.

Blakeman first imposed the ban through an executive order, but it was struck down after a lawsuit from the roller derby league and the NYCLU. The county’s Republican-controlled Legislature then passed a law containing the ban, setting off another round of litigation.

NEW YORK — NEW YORK (AP) — A New York judge on Monday upheld a Long Island county’s law banning transgender women from playing on female sports teams at county-run parks and recreational facilities.

In a decision in a suit brought by a roller derby league, Judge R. Bruce Cozzens wrote that Nassau County’s ban is designed “to protect women and girls” and that transgender athletes can still play in coed sports leagues at the county’s facilities.

“The Court agrees that this Local Law is narrowly tailored to achieve the objectives and does not categorically exclude transgender individuals from athletic participation,” he wrote. “The law regulates access to women and girls categories in the County run facilities for organized athletic events.”

Cozzens had previously denied a request to temporarily pause the enforcement of the ban while a lawsuit played out.

The roller derby league, the Long Island Roller Rebels, had sued over the law, arguing it violated state anti-discrimination laws. The New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on the league’s behalf, released a statement saying it would challenge Monday’s decision.

“Today’s decision sends a chilling message that trans people don’t belong in Nassau County, but the fight doesn’t end here,” said Gabriella Larios, staff attorney at the NYCLU, adding, “We are confident that New York courts will ultimately see the ban for what it is -– unlawful and discriminatory.”

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, had first imposed a ban through an executive order last year but it was struck down after a lawsuit from the roller derby league and the NYCLU. The county’s Republican-controlled Legislature then passed a law containing the ban, setting off the latest round of litigation.

In a statement Monday, Blakeman said, “We are grateful that the court found our legislation to be valid and legal.”

CLOVIS, Calif. — California’s high school track-and-field state finals will award one extra medal Saturday in events where a transgender athlete places in the top three, a rule change that may be the first of its kind nationally by a high school sports governing body.

The new California Interscholastic Federation policy was written in response to the success of high school junior AB Hernandez, a trans student who competes in the girls high jump, long jump and triple jump. She led in all three events after preliminaries Friday. The CIF said earlier this week it would let an additional student compete and medal in the events where Hernandez qualified.

The two-day championship kicked off in the sweltering heat at high school near Fresno. The atmosphere was relatively quiet Friday despite critics — including parents, conservative activists and President Donald Trump — calling for Hernandez to be barred from girls competition leading up to the meet.

There was some pushback Friday. A group of fewer than 10 people gathered outside the stadium ahead of the meet to protest Hernandez’s participation. Some of them wore “Save Girls’ Sports” T-shirts. At one point as Hernandez was attempting a high jump, someone in the stands yelled an insult. An aircraft circled above the stadium for more than an hour during the events, carrying a banner that read, “No Boys in Girls’ Sports!”

The rest of the night ran smoothly for Hernandez, who finished the triple jump with a mark close to 41 feet (13 meters), nearly 10 inches (25 centimeters) ahead of her closest competitor, San Francisco Bay Area junior Kira Gant Hatcher.

Hernandez also led in the long jump with a mark close to 20 feet (6 meters) to advance to the final. She advanced in the high jump, clearing 5 feet, 5 inches (1.7 meters) with ease.

She did not address the press.

The CIF rule change reflects efforts to find a middle ground in the debate over trans girls’ participation in youth sports.

“The CIF values all of our student-athletes and we will continue to uphold our mission of providing students with the opportunity to belong, connect, and compete while complying with California law,” the group said in a statement after announcing its rule change.

A recent AP-NORC poll found that about 7 in 10 U.S. adults think transgender female athletes should not be allowed to participate in girls and women’s sports at the high school, college or professional level. That view was shared by about 9 in 10 Republicans and roughly half of Democrats.

The federation announced the rule change after Trump threatened this week to pull federal funding from California unless it bars trans female athletes from competing on girls teams. The CIF said it decided on the change before then.

The U.S. Department of Justice also said it would investigate the state federation and the district that includes Hernandez’s high school to determine whether they violated federal sex discrimination law by allowing trans girls to compete in girls sports.

Some California Republicans also weighed in, with several state lawmakers attending a news conference to criticize the federation for keeping Hernandez in the competition and a Republican gubernatorial candidate planning to attend Saturday’s finals.

California law allows trans students to compete on sex-segregated sports teams consistent with their gender identity.

The federation said the rule would open the field to more “biological female” athletes. One expert said the change may itself be discriminatory because it creates an extra spot for “biological female” athletes but not for other trans athletes.

The federation did not specify how they define “biological female” or how they would verify whether a competitor meets that definition.

Hernandez told the publication Capital & Main earlier this month that she couldn’t worry about critics.

“I’m still a child, you’re an adult, and for you to act like a child shows how you are as a person,” she said.

California’s state championship stands out from that of other states because of the number of competitors athletes are up against to qualify. The state had the second-largest number of students participating in outdoor track and field in the nation during the 2023-2024 school year, behind Texas, according to a survey by the National Federation of State High School Associations.

Olympians Marion Jones and Tara Davis-Woodhall previously set state championship records in the long jump in 1993 and 2017, respectively, both surpassing 22 feet (6.7 meters).

The boys 100-meter dash heats were also a highlight Friday. Junior Jaden Jefferson of De La Salle High School in Concord finished in 10.01 seconds, about .2 seconds faster than a meet record set in 2023. Jefferson’s time won’t count as a record unless he can replicate his results in the final.

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Austin is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative. Report for America is a nonprofit national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues. Follow Austin on X: @sophieadanna

LONDON — In a judgment with far-reaching implications, the U.K. Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a woman is someone born biologically female and that transgender women are excluded from that legal definition.

The ruling was cheered by some feminists who have campaigned to safeguard rights for women on the basis of biological sex. Trans rights campaigners were disappointed, and worry about the ruling’s implications for transgender women.

The court was asked to determine the definition of a woman under Britain’s 2010 Equality Act, which sets out protections against discrimination on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, race, religion and other traits.

The case stems from a 2018 law passed by the Scottish Parliament calling for 50% female representation on the boards of Scottish public bodies. Its definition of women included trans women whose gender is legally affirmed with a Gender Recognition Certificate.

A feminist group, For Women Scotland, challenged that in court, saying the Scottish government had overstepped its powers by effectively redefining the meaning of “woman.”

The group lost a ruling in a Scottish court in 2022 but was later granted permission to take its case to the Supreme Court, which held hearings in November.

Justice Patrick Hodge said he and four other judges ruled unanimously that “the terms woman and sex in the Equality Act refer to a biological woman.”

In the law, “the words ‘sex,’ ‘woman’ and ‘man’ … mean (and were always intended to mean) biological sex, biological woman and biological man,” the judges wrote.

The judges argued that a broader definition that includes transgender people would make the Equality Act “incoherent and unworkable.”

“We can identify no good reason why the legislature should have intended that sex-based rights and protections under the (Equality Act) should apply to these complex, heterogenous groupings, rather than to the distinct group of (biological) women and girls (or men and boys) with their shared biology leading to shared disadvantage and discrimination faced by them as a distinct group,” they wrote.

The ruling makes no mention of intersex people, who also are not explicitly protected under the Equality Act.

As in other countries, the issue has polarized opinion, pitting transgender rights campaigners against “gender critical” feminists, who argue that trans women’s rights should not come at the expense of those who are born biologically female.

For Women Scotland said it was “absolutely jubilant” at the ruling. “Harry Potter” author J.K. Rowling, a prominent supporter of the group, said the court victory had “protected the rights of women and girls across the U.K.”

But LGBTQ+ charity Stonewall said there is “deep concern” surrounding the ruling’s consequences.

Vic Valentine, manager of the group Scottish Trans, said the judgment “seems to have totally missed what matters to trans people — that we are able to live our lives, and be recognized, in line with who we truly are.”

Amnesty International U.K. described the ruling as “disappointing,” but said it is “important to stress that the court has been clear that trans people are protected under the Equality Act against discrimination and harassment.”

The Supreme Court judges stressed that their ruling should not be seen as an attack on transgender people. They said it “does not remove or diminish the important protections … for trans people” under the Equality Act, which bans discrimination against transgender people.

It’s unclear what the ruling will mean in practice.

The judgment highlights a range of spaces and services that could be intended just for women, including “rape or domestic violence counselling, domestic violence refuges, rape crisis centers, female-only hospital wards and changing rooms.” The law already allowed for trans women to be excluded from single-sex spaces under certain circumstances, but Wednesday’s ruling appears to make such a ban easier.

The ruling could also see transgender female athletes excluded from participating in women’s and girls sports, and there could also be ramifications in workplaces.

But much depends on how the ruling is interpreted and implemented.

Hannah Ford, an employment partner at law firm Stevens & Bolton, told the BBC that because of the ruling, ensuring workplaces are welcoming places for trans people will be “an uphill battle.”

She said one positive aspect was that “at least we have simplicity and clarity. So it is in one sense a triumph of sense over legal incoherency and legal fiction.”

President Joe Biden began his term in the White House with a broad promise to protect transgender Americans against Republican policies that painted them as a threat to children and sought to push them out of public life.

“Your president has your back,” Biden assured trans people in his first State of the Union address in 2021, and he repeated a version of that statement in subsequent speeches.

But with President-elect Donald Trump days away from taking office after piling on transgender people throughout his campaign, some worry Biden did not do enough to shield them from what’s likely to come.

The president-elect has declared that “it will be the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders — male and female,” and pledged to sign a series of executive orders targeting trans people early in his presidency.

Biden and Democrats, meanwhile, are grappling with how to handle transgender politics after the GOP used Democrats’ support for the trans community to win back the White House and control of Congress. Vice President Kamala Harris rarely mentioned transgender people during her campaign, but Trump’s campaign cited previous Harris statements to argue relentlessly to swing voters that she was focused on trans issues rather than the economy.

Democrats will not soon forget the punchline of a Trump ad that became ubiquitous by Election Day: “Kamala is for they/them; President Trump is for you.”

In his last full month in office, Biden scrapped pending plans to provide protections for transgender student-athletes and signed a bill that includes language stripping coverage of transgender medical treatments for the children of service members.

His actions follow a common strategy in which the outgoing administration rushes through policies or abandons unfinished regulations to prevent the incoming president from retooling them to more quickly advance his own agenda. But some trans people question why Biden let plans that might have better protected them from Trump’s policies sit on the back-burner.

“In some ways, the Biden administration has lived up to promises to support trans people, but not nearly to the degree that they could have, nor to what is equal to the current anti-trans onslaught,” Imara Jones, a transgender woman who created “The Anti-Trans Hate Machine” podcast, told The Associated Press.

Biden named trans people to influential positions across his administration, she noted. He overturned a Trump-era ban on trans people serving in the military and made it possible for U.S. citizens who do not identify as male or female to select an “X” as the gender marker on their passports.

“Under President Biden’s leadership, we have remedied historical injustices and advanced equality for the community, but there is more work to do, and we hope that work continues after he leaves office,” said White House spokesperson Kelly Scully.

The Justice Department under Biden also challenged state laws in Tennessee and Alabama that banned gender-affirming medical care for trans youth, and it filed statements of interest in other cases.

“But major gaps were both opened and remain,” Jones said. “The administration failed to follow through on Title IX, failed to defend trans health care and failed to adequately address anti-trans violence. The list goes on. Even now, the administration could be putting in place measures to help safeguard the trans community, at least temporarily.”

Some LGBTQ+ advocates have accused Biden of abandoning the transgender community after he signed into law the annual defense bill despite his objections to a provision preventing the military’s health program from covering certain medical treatments for transgender children in military families.

The nation’s largest organization of LGBTQ+ service members and veterans said Biden’s decision to sign the bill is “in direct opposition to claims that his administration is the most pro-LGBTQ+ in American history.”

Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, said it’s the first federal law targeting LGBTQ+ people since the 1990s, when Congress adopted the Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman. President Bill Clinton, a Democrat, signed it into law, a decision he later said he regretted.

The restriction comes as at least 26 states have adopted laws banning or limiting gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors, though most face lawsuits. Federal judges have struck down the bans in Arkansas and Florida as unconstitutional, but a federal appeals court has stayed the Florida ruling. A judge’s order is in place temporarily blocking enforcement of a ban in Montana.

Twenty-five states have laws on the books barring trans women and girls from competing in certain women’s sports competitions. Judges have temporarily blocked the enforcement of bans in Arizona, Idaho and Utah.

When Biden in 2023 introduced his now-abandoned proposal to forbid outright bans on transgender student-athletes, trans rights advocates were dissatisfied, saying it left room for individual schools to prevent some athletes from playing on teams consistent with their gender identity.

The sports proposal, meant as a follow-up to a broader rule that extended civil rights protections to LGBTQ+ students under Title IX, was then delayed several times.

The delays from Biden were widely viewed as a political maneuver during an election year as Republicans generated outcry about trans athletes in girls’ sports. Had the rule been finalized, it would likely have faced conservative legal challenges like those that prevented the broader Title IX policy from taking effect in dozens of states.

ALBANY, N.Y. — Democrats pushed to get a constitutional amendment on New York’s ballot because they believed it could energize liberals eager to protect abortion rights. Republicans are now hoping the same amendment will ignite a fire under people upset about transgender athletes participating in girls’ and women’s sports.

Voters will decide Nov. 5 whether to approve the state’s proposed “Equal Rights Amendment,” which has already been the subject of a court fight over its broad language. The amendment, called “Proposition 1” on the ballot, has emerged as one of the more unusual ideological battles of the 2024 election season, partly because of disagreements about what it will do if passed.

On paper, the proposed amendment would expand a section of the state constitution that now says a person can’t be denied civil rights because of their race, creed or religion. The new language will also ban discrimination based on national origin, age, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, pregnancy, pregnancy outcomes or “reproductive healthcare and autonomy.”

While much of the news coverage of the amendment has focused on how it might protect abortion rights, Republicans have been running a messaging campaign warning that barring discrimination based on someone’s “gender expression” would create a constitutional right for transgender athletes to play on girls’ sports teams.

“The consequences of the state constitution being amended is drastic,” said Lee Zeldin, a Republican former congressman and gubernatorial candidate who is a leading critic of the amendment.

The leading group opposing the amendment, the Coalition to Protect Kids-NY, has held rallies across the state and put out advertisements against the proposal saying banning discrimination based on “national origin” could allow noncitizens to vote, and that the amendment would also take away parents’ right to have a say in their child’s medical care.

People who support the amendment argue the group is trying to mislead voters.

State courts have ruled that other parts of the state constitution already bar noncitizens from voting. The New York City Bar Association said nothing about the amendment would wipe out existing state laws requiring parental consent for a child’s medical care.

“They’re really looking to distract, to divide, to change the subject,” said Jennifer Weiss-Wolf, executive director of the Birnbaum Women’s Leadership Center at NYU School of Law. “I think New Yorkers will be able to see through that.”

Backers of the proposed amendment say it is true that a constitutional ban on discrimination based on someone’s “gender identity” would benefit transgender people, including trans athletes, though not in the dramatic way suggested by opponents.

State law already offers similar antidiscrimination protections to all public school students, said Katharine Bodde, interim co-director of policy at the New York Civil Liberties Union. Under those laws, she said, transgender people already have a right to play on sports teams that match their gender identity, she argued. But those protections would become codified into the state constitution, making it harder for a future legislature to change the law.

“Opponents fear-mongering about the small handful of students already participating in sports is dangerous and bullying of a vulnerable population of kids,” Bodde told The Associated Press.

The state’s most populous county outside New York City recently enacted legislation banning teams with transgender athletes from using any county facilities, unless the team is designated as co-ed.

A court battle is underway over whether that Nassau County ban violates existing state law. New York’s attorney general said it does.

Attorneys for the county argued in a court filing that the ban isn’t discriminatory because it doesn’t exclude transgender women and girls from sports, but rather requires them to play in a co-ed league “with those of their same physical ability, strength, speed, force, so as not to dominate women’s sports.”

It is also plausible that the amendment, if passed, would become a factor if New York lawmakers ever decided to join the 25 states that have passed laws restricting or banning gender-affirming medical care for transgender minors. Supporters of the amendment said it would prohibit discriminatory bans on medical care. The U.S. Supreme Court is hearing arguments in its new term on whether such bans enacted elsewhere are unconstitutional or violate federal law.

On abortion, there has already been some debate in the courts about what Proposition 1 will and won’t do.

Democrats in the state legislature voted to put the amendment on the 2024 ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.

Backers of the amendment say that while its language doesn’t explicitly enshrine the right to terminate a pregnancy, it would create a legal framework under which future restrictions on abortion would be interpreted by courts as an unconstitutional form of discrimination.

In a recent ruling, however, one state judge noted that its actual impact wasn’t so clear-cut.

Judge David A. Weinstein turned down a request that written material be given to voters at polling places saying the amendment would protect abortion rights, in part because of its nonspecific language. He predicted it would be the subject of future legal wrangling.

“I lack the requisite crystal ball to predict how the proposed amendment will be interpreted in particular contexts,” he wrote.

New York state law currently allows access to abortion until fetal viability, which is usually between 24 and 26 weeks.

Nevada voters in 2022 approved similar constitutional language to bar discrimination “regardless of race, color, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, age, disability, ancestry, or national origin.”

That amendment was then cited in a lawsuit that struck down a state ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion services, with a court ruling the policy violated the amendment’s provision on sex discrimination.