MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Trump administration sued Minnesota and its school athletics governing body on Monday, carrying out a threat to punish the state for allowing transgender athletes to compete in girls sports.

The lawsuit is part of a broader fight over the rights of transgender youth. More than two dozen states have laws prohibiting transgender women and girls from participating in certain sports and some have barred gender-affirming surgeries for minors. Courts have blocked some of those policies.

In the lawsuit filed Monday, the Justice Department alleges the state Department of Education and the Minnesota State High School League are violating Title IX, a federal law against sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal money.

“The Trump Administration does not tolerate flawed state policies that ignore biological reality and unfairly undermine girls on the playing field,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement.

Democratic Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison called the lawsuit “a sad attempt to get attention” over an issue that has already been in litigation for months. He said he’ll keep fighting.

“It is astonishing that any president would try to target, shame, and harass children just trying to be themselves, let alone a president with so many actual problems to address,” Ellison said in a statement.

The League does not comment on threatened or pending lawsuits, spokesman Tim Leighton said.

The administration has filed similar lawsuits against Maine and California, and has threatened the federal funding of some universities over transgender athletes, including San Jose State in California and the University of Pennsylvania.

Minnesota officials have long resisted the federal push to ban trans athletes from girls sports. Ellison filed a preemptive lawsuit last April, saying Minnesota’s human rights act supersedes executive orders issued by President Donald Trump last year. The lawsuit also says the state is already in compliance with Title IX. A ruling is pending on the federal government’s motion to dismiss that case.

The Justice Department said in a statement that Minnesota violates Title IX “by requiring girls to compete against boys in athletic competitions that are designated exclusively for girls and allowing boys to invade intimate spaces designated exclusively for girls, such as multi-person locker rooms and bathrooms.”