"Even these small things can create significant mental health and esteem issues..."

A Minnesota court found last week that a women football team is guilty of discrimination for not a trans woman play.

Christina Ginther, a 6-foot-tall male-to-female transgender, was already an accomplished athlete and a black belt in karate when she joined the Minnesota Vixen -- currently part of the Independent Women Football League. At first, she was accepted warmly by the team, who would cheer for her during practice, the Star Tribune ​reported last week. 

“I found my home,” Ginther, 46, told the Star.

It was only two years after her transition, which had cost her her marriage, and Ginther was still piecing back her life together. But for the team, the fact of Ginther's transition came as a surprise. In fact, a 2012 revision to the league's eligibility code requires players to prove that they have always been legally and medically female in order to join.

When Ginther's secret came out, she was told to leave. So she sued -- and won.

Last Friday a Dakota County jury ordered the team to pay her $20,000 -- half for punitive damages and half for "emotional distress."

“It wasn’t some law professor or some politician getting up and talking about transgender rights,” Nicholas May, Ginther's lawyer, told the Star. “It’s a jury of regular folks who are saying, ‘This isn’t OK.’ That’s novel.”

May said that the ruling validated his assertion that the team's decision to exclude Ginther was "discriminatory."

The Dakota court ruling adds another layer to an already tense debate: Last week tennis ​legend and feminist advocate Martina Navratilova tweeted her unequivocal objection to the inclusion of biologically-male players in women sports. Given the physical differences between the sexes, the desire to include transgender women in women-only teams, Navratilova argues, could undermine the very "level playing field" and competitive "fairness" that female teams were created to ensure.