Trans athletes belong in the game
Across the country, in nearly half of all US states, over 70 anti-trans bills are further pushing trans people to the margins of our society. Among the many cruelties featured in this rash of bills is one particularly insidious effort: banning trans youth from sports. While anti-trans lawmakers claim these bills will level the playing field, in actuality, this fight has nothing to do with fairness, nothing to do with sports, and everything to do with stigmatizing and harming trans people, children in particular.
Consistent with other legal attacks on trans people, e.g., in schools, bathrooms, and the workplace, anti-trans sports bans offer pretend solutions to a “problem” that doesn’t exist: trans people having the advantage. And they do so under the guise of supporting cis women and girls and promoting fairness. The reality is that the bans themselves are unfair, and incredibly harmful. And not just to trans people. The rhetoric of these campaigns deepens ignorance around sex and gender, and reinforces the notion that men, boys, and “maleness” are unconditionally superior and ordered as such by natural hierarchy. Despite its historic scale, it’s an old setup: cissexism on offense, sexism as defense, and a uniform of sheer transphobia.
Where proposals include so-called “gender testing” or, in some cases, surgery requirements, we see an attempt to undermine people’s ability to embody their gender in a way that is true and healthy to them. This is even more evident in parallel legal battles, like the recently un-vetoed ban in Arkansas that stands to ban gender-affirming care for trans youth. Presented together, as they were designed by far-right groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council, these attacks deliberately compromise the safety and wellbeing of trans youth, including their physical health, social and emotional development, and right to privacy.
They are particularly heinous in that they:
target spaces proven to provide youth with crucial positive social interactions with peers
distort and manipulate inadequate science – in many cases pseudoscience – in service of hate
use scare tactics and amplify stereotypes that feed into very real violence against trans people
This is not about sports. In fact, these campaigns discredit nearly all athletes who rely on so much more than hormone production and muscular capacity. So what is their game? Well, this is about eroding civil rights protections trans people deserve in life and have died fighting to secure; rights those who are not trans benefit from every day. This is a clear continuation of a well-funded and nationally coordinated strategy seeking to legislate trans people out of existence and shore up a broader movement opposing LGBTQ progress.
With so many systems rigged and dollars stacked against us, how do we win? Can we call the political debate around gender self-determination by its name and establish, once and for all, that what’s actually illegitimate here are arguments for legal exclusion? At Stonewall, we believe so. And the best play we know is investing in an LGBTQ movement that centers trans experience and champions self-determination and social agency, moves that not only unravel conservative agendas, but also unite struggles for liberation, from reproductive justice to ending sexual violence.
As a community foundation, we have a duty to defend our own. We do this every day at Stonewall, hand in hand with hundreds of incredible LGBTQ groups across the country. You can invest directly in trans leaders in our network by supporting our Mx. Bond Fund which provides grants to orgs and projects by and for TGNCNB people. We also encourage you to show solidarity with these organizations fighting back against anti-trans attacks:
Transgender Law Center
ACLU’s LGBTQ & HIV Project
Sylvia Rivera Law Project
Transgender Legal Defense & Education Fund
Lambda Legal