North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed HB 1489, barring transgender women from women's college sports teams

On April 11, 2023, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum signed HB 1489 into law, requiring public colleges and competing private institutions in the state to designate every athletic team as male, female, or coed and prohibiting female-designated teams from being open to students of "the male sex." The law, codified at North Dakota Century Code chapter 15-10.6, defines sex by an individual's "nonambiguous sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous hormone profile at birth," a standard that excludes transgender women from women's collegiate athletics.

The bill was carried in the House by Rep. Ben Koppelman and cleared the 68th Legislative Assembly with veto-proof margins, passing the House 75-18 on February 15, 2023, and the Senate 40-7 on April 3, 2023. Beyond the team-designation requirement, the measure bars adverse action against institutions that maintain the separation and creates a private right of action allowing students to sue for violations. Burgum signed HB 1489 in Bismarck alongside HB 1249, a companion measure applying a comparable restriction to K-12 school sports.

The Human Rights Campaign and the ACLU of North Dakota condemned the enactment as discriminatory, and it took effect as part of a broader slate of North Dakota legislation restricting transgender residents' participation in public life. By defining eligibility for a public program through a protected characteristic, the law conditions access to college athletics on birth-assigned sex.