North Dakota Gov. Burgum signed HB 1249, barring transgender girls from female K-12 school sports teams

On April 11, 2023, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum signed House Bill 1249 into law, enacting Chapter 15.1-39 of the North Dakota Century Code. The statute requires every public school, and any not-for-profit nonpublic school whose teams compete against public schools, to expressly designate each interscholastic or intramural athletic team or sport as "males/men/boys," "females/women/girls," or "coed/mixed" based on the sex of the intended participants. It defines "sex" as "the biological state of being female or male, based on an individual's nonambiguous sex organs, chromosomes, and endogenous hormone profile at birth," and provides that a team designated for females "may not be open to students of the male sex" — barring transgender girls from girls' teams.

The law further prohibits any government entity, licensing or accrediting body, or athletic association from investigating or taking adverse action against a school for maintaining separate female teams, and it creates a private civil cause of action — for students denied an athletic opportunity, students facing retaliation for reporting a violation, or schools harmed by enforcement — allowing injunctive relief, damages including for psychological and emotional harm, and reasonable attorney's fees, with a two-year statute of limitations.

The Legislative Assembly passed HB 1249 with veto-proof majorities — 78-15 in the House on February 15 and 38-9 in the Senate on April 3 — and the enrolled bill was filed with the Secretary of State on April 12. Burgum, who had vetoed comparable legislation in 2021, said in a signing statement that the Legislature had "resoundingly determined" the restrictions should be codified, noting he was aware of no transgender girl among the state's roughly 27,000 student athletes who had asked to play on a girls' team. The same day, Burgum signed a companion measure, HB 1489, applying parallel rules to higher education.