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By Jim Paulsen, Star Tribune (TNS)

Several metro-area high school softball players are suing Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and other state leaders to remove transgender athletes from their sport.

In a federal lawsuit filed Monday, an organization representing the players from two high schools, Female Athletes United, alleges in the suit that a decade-old Minnesota policy allowing transgender athletes to play has created an unsafe environment and unfair competition for the Maple Grove High and Farmington High players. The suit focuses on an unnamed metro-area player who the plaintiffs allege was born male.

In the suit, the softball players state they do not know what “medical interventions, if any,” the player male has received. The players said the state created an unlevel playing field for female athletes by allowing males to compete in women’s sports “regardless of any pharmaceutical intervention, and testosterone suppression and puberty blockers.”

The Minnesota State High School League’s board of directors in 2015 voted to open girls sports to transgender student-athletes. The decision took effect for the 2015-16 school year and made Minnesota the 33rd state to adopt a formal transgender student policy.

In addition to Ellison, other officials named in the suit are Erich Martens, MSHSL executive director; Willie Jett, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Education; and Rebecca Lucero, commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Human Rights.

The Minnesota Star Tribune has reached out to all named parties for comment this morning.

According to the suit, the plaintiffs “all believe that it is unsafe and unfair to play against a male athlete, particularly in softball” and that female athletes are at a “significant disadvantage” against male athletes.

“Additionally, they reasonably fear that they could be injured,” per the suit, which describes the player as a dominant pitcher. The plaintiffs are seeking “the benefits of competing against only women in and girls in athletic competitions.”

The MSHSL’s current bylaw allows participation for all students “consistent with their gender identity or expression in an environment free from discrimination with an equal opportunity for participation in athletics and fine arts.”

Citing the Data Privacy Act, the MSHSL does not require, nor does it keep, records of transgender athletes in Minnesota.

In April, Ellison filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration over two executive orders Ellison said amount to “bullying” of trans children. In February,

Trump signed an executive order titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports” which declared a person’s sex as the gender assigned at birth and banned transgender people from participating in girls and women’s sports. Last month, the Trump administration’s Department of Justice sued Maine over a sports policy allowing transgender participation.

Ellison and the MSHSL’s administration previously stated the federal order is in direct violation of the equal protection clause of the Minnesota Constitution.