A Cedar Rapids Raptors punt return ended with Bomber Kershbaum racing toward the sideline to make a tackle that sent the returner twisting in midair to the ground. The physicality was on display in cold temperatures, wind and pouring rain in Spring Lake Park, enough to topple sideline tents.
Professional women’s tackle football is back at Spring Lake Park High School, where the Minnesota Minx opened the 2026 season against the Cedar Rapids Raptors on April 11.
The inaugural game came after leaving a league whose transgender participation policy, team leaders said, conflicted with the Minx’s values.
“It became clear that, one, our former league was not going to change,” Minx head coach Jodi “Moose” Rehlander said. “And two, that there was an option for us to play under an umbrella more closely aligned with the values of our team.”
Rehlander said the team’s former league decided in February 2025 to follow President Donald Trump’s executive order, “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” which directed the Education Department to interpret Title IX as protecting women’s sports based on sex and to prioritize enforcement against schools and athletic associations that allow male participation in women’s categories.
Rehlander said the league’s policy change brought the Minx’s own values into sharper focus.
Board president Claire Romey said those core tenets have guided the Minx.
“Those have been our values from the beginning,” Romey said. “And it’s really important that we align and follow those mission values that we’ve held up close.”
Those values, team leaders said, are community, accessibility, inclusivity and empowerment.
“And the inclusivity piece of our mission values means that we welcome everyone, all women and nonbinary athletes, to our team,” Rehlander said. “And that includes transgender players.”
July Twenty-Three, a transgender woman who played last year and is on staff this year, said she believed 2025 was the first season a transgender woman played for the Minx.
“I had an extremely positive experience within the culture of the team,” Twenty-Three said. “… The initiative to ensure that I was safe in this space in ways that went above and beyond.”
She said the season forced the team to navigate new situations almost immediately, including questions in the weeks before the first game about how to accommodate her after the league adopted its policy.
At times, Twenty-Three said, the team had to decide whether to play at all if she was going to be excluded from competition. When the question was put to her, she encouraged the Minx to keep going.
“The subsequent process of the team building that came from those moments was a catalyst for a truly wonderful and positive tone that the Minx had together throughout the 2025 season,” she said.
Twenty-Three said she was not allowed to play in South Dakota, where the league told teams states could choose whether to follow Trump’s executive order. Romey said league rules, as the team understood them, effectively allowed participation in some states, including Minnesota, while limiting it in others.
Inside the team, Twenty-Three said, her presence brought players closer together.
“Part of what I hear is that the presence of trans women is divisive, there’s unfair advantages, there’s a lot of unknown aspects to inviting trans women into women’s sports,” Twenty-Three said. “… My experience and my vantage point was that me being there was exciting, was empowering, was energizing, brought people closer together. There was camaraderie, there was sisterhood, there was fun. We all found ourselves wanting to play at our best, and I think that the spirit of inclusivity that coach spoke to brought out the best in everybody.”
Romey said the season was both difficult and unifying.
“I totally agree with everything July said,” Romey said. “It was a very challenging season, and it was a very special season in terms of everyone coming together and lifting each other up and working together to overcome something that did not align with where we were as a team.”
Romey said the Minx flew both the transgender flag and the Minx flag at every game. She said Twenty-Three was on the sideline in pink when she could not play.
“Personally, I was both sad and extremely touched to see July on the sideline,” Romey said. “She was a wonderful, uplifting voice on the sideline.”
Rehlander said the broader question, in her view, is what sports should offer people.
“To deny someone the growth and the emotion that is very unique to competition just because of who they are, that flies in the face of everything I knew to be personally true,” Rehlander said.
She said that when the team watched film after the South Dakota game, Twenty-Three’s “wonderful pinkness” appeared throughout.
“It felt so freeing, and it was just really freeing to have done one small thing to show, at least publicly, where we stand,” Rehlander said.
In five games during the 2025 season, Twenty-Three totaled 288 receiving yards and two touchdowns, along with 25 rushing yards.
The Minx were also recognized by Columbia Heights at its March 23 council meeting, when Mayor Amáda Márquez Simula proclaimed March 31, 2026, as Transgender Day of Visibility in the city and encouraged residents to support and stand in solidarity with the transgender community.
For the first game of the season, The Minx suffered a 44-0 defeat at the hands of the Cedar Rapids Raptors at its inaugural game on April 12.
The Minx’s roots stretch back to the long history of women’s tackle football in Minnesota. The Minnesota Vixen trace their history to the 1999 launch of the Women’s Professional Football League, and the Minx later broke off as a companion team.
Rehlander said she has played for the Minnesota Vixen since the 1999 season.
Until this past season, the Minx played in the same league as the Vixen.
This is the Minx’s second season playing at Spring Lake Park High School. In the team’s inaugural season, it had no home games and played two away games in South Dakota. It later played at Harding High School before moving to Spring Lake Park.
Romey said the team prides itself on welcoming athletes with different skills, body types and backgrounds, and that flexibility shows up on the field as well.
Rehlander said that can lead to major position changes. She cited one example in which the team’s strongest offensive line player from the previous season moved to strong-side linebacker, while the Sam linebacker moved back to the offensive line.
“Now both sides of the ball are equally strong, because we have a player who understands what a linebacker is doing on the offensive line,” Rehlander said. “And so, that’s really the point of the Minx. Teach people how to play the game, and be better humans along the way, and everybody wins.”
Rehlander, who serves as both defensive coordinator and head coach, said the Minx run multiple fronts on defense. The caveat, she said, is the old saying that football is chess, not checkers.
“Each game is like going to a different restaurant,” Rehlander said. “And the playbook is all of the possible menu combinations that we could have.”
For example, Rehlander said the Minx’s opening-week opponent averaged 194 pounds and stood 5.65 feet tall. She said that was akin to a team of fire hydrants and that not everything in the playbook would work against that.
“So you pick and choose,” Rehlander said. “But whatever specific plays we choose, we are a disciplined team on both offense and defense. We take pride in fundamentals, we teach you where to put your hands, where to place your feet, how to block.”
The offense typically operates 60%-40% in favor of the run, sometimes even 70%-30%, a ratio Rehlander said is fairly typical of the women’s game.
“Every year our playbook will look different based on who we have and their talents,” Rehlander said. “It’s not Jim Harbaugh, we run the west coast and if you don’t fit into it, you don’t play for us.”