Lawmakers can't cite local examples of trans girls in sports
Category: News & Politics
Via: john-russell • 4 years ago • 28 commentsBy: DAVID CRARY and LINDSAY WHITEHURST (MSN)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Legislators in more than 20 states have introduced bills this year that would ban transgender girls from competing on girls' sports teams in public high schools. Yet in almost every case, sponsors cannot cite a single instance in their own state or region where such participation has caused problems.
The Associated Press reached out to two dozen state lawmakers sponsoring such measures around the country as well as the conservative groups supporting them and found only a few times it's been an issue among the hundreds of thousands of American teenagers who play high school sports.
In South Carolina, for example, Rep. Ashley Trantham said she knew of no transgender athletes competing in the state and was proposing a ban to prevent possible problems in the future. Otherwise, she said during a recent hearing, "the next generation of female athletes in South Carolina may not have a chance to excel."
In Tennessee, House Speaker Cameron Sexton conceded there may not actually be transgender students now participating in middle and high school sports; he said a bill was necessary so the state could be "proactive."
Some lawmakers didn't respond to AP's queries. Others in places like Mississippi and Montana largely brushed aside the question or pointed to a pair of runners in Connecticut. Between 2017 and 2019, transgender sprinters Terry Miller and Andraya Yearwood combined to win 15 championship races, prompting a lawsuit.
Supporters of transgender rights say the Connecticut case gets so much attention from conservatives because it's the only example of its kind.
"It's their Exhibit A, and there's no Exhibit B — absolutely none," said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and a prominent trans-rights attorney.
The multiple sports bills, he says, address a threat that doesn't exist.
There's no authoritative count of how many trans athletes have competed recently in high school or college sports. Neither the NCAA nor most state high school athletic associations collect that data; in the states that do collect it, the numbers are minimal: No more than five students currently in Kansas, nine in Ohio over five years.
Transgender adults make up a small portion of the U.S. population, about 1.3 million as of 2016, according to the Williams Institute, a think tank at the UCLA School of Law that specializes in research on LGBTQ issues.
The two dozen bills making their way through state legislatures this year could be devastating for transgender teens who usually get little attention as they compete.
In Utah, a 12-year-old transgender girl cried when she heard about the proposal, which would separate her from her friends. She's far from the tallest girl on her club team and has worked hard to improve her times but is not a dominant swimmer in her age group, her coach said.
"Other than body parts, I've been a girl my whole life," she said.
The girl and her family spoke with The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to avoid outing her publicly.
Those who object to the growing visibility and rights for transgender people, though, argue new laws are needed to keep the playing field fair for cisgender girls.
"When the law does not recognize differences between men and women, we've seen that women lose," said Christiana Holcomb, an attorney for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which filed the Connecticut lawsuit on behalf of four cisgender girls.
One of those girls, Chelsea Mitchell, defeated Terry Miller — the faster of the two trans sprinters — in their final two races in February 2020.
The ADF and others like it are the behind-the-scenes backers of the campaign, offering model legislation and a playbook to promote the bills, most of them with common features and even titles, like the Save Women's Sports Act.
When asked for other examples of complaints about middle or high school transgender athletes, ADF and the Family Policy Alliance, cited two: One involved a Hawaii woman who coaches track and filed a complaint last year over a trans girl competing in girls' volleyball and track. The other involved a cisgender girl in Alaska who defeated a trans sprinter in 2016, then appeared in a Family Policy Alliance video saying the trans girl's third-place finish was unfair to runners who were further behind.
Only one state, Idaho, has enacted a law curtailing trans students' sports participation, and that 2020 measure is blocked by a court ruling.
Chase Strangio, a transgender-rights attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, notes that in several states with proposed sports bans, lawmakers also are seeking to ban certain gender affirming health care for transgender young people.
"This is not about sports," he said. "It's a way to attack trans people."
Some states' school athletic organizations already have rules about trans participation in sports: 19 states allow full inclusion of trans athletes; 16 have no clear-cut statewide policy; seven emulate the NCAA's rule by requiring hormone therapy for trans girls; and eight effectively ban trans girls from girls' teams, according to attorney Asaf Orr of the National Center for Lesbian Rights.
Texas is among those with a ban, limiting transgender athletes to teams conforming with the gender on their birth certificate.
That policy came under criticism in 2017 and 2018, when trans male Mack Beggs won state titles in girls' wrestling competitions after he was told he could not compete as a boy.
While Beggs, Miller and Yearwood were the focus of news coverage and controversy, trans athletes more commonly compete without any furor — and with broad acceptance from teammates and competitors.
In New Jersey's Camden County, trans 14-year-old Rebekah Bruesehoff competes on her middle school field hockey team and hopes to keep playing in high school.
"It's all been positive," she said. "The coaches have been really helpful."
While New Jersey has a trans-inclusive sports policy, Rebekah is distressed by the proposed bans elsewhere — notably measures that might require girls to verify their gender.
"I know what it's like to have my gender questioned," Rebekah said. "It's invasive, embarrassing. I don't want others to go through that."
The possibility that any athlete could have to undergo tests or examinations to prove their gender was among the reasons that Truman Hamburger, a 17-year-old high school student in North Dakota, showed up at the statehouse to protest a proposed ban.
"Once you open up that door on gender policing, that's not a door you can easily shut," he said.
Sarah Huckman, a 20-year-old sophomore at the University of New Hampshire, ran track and cross country for three years at Kingswood Regional High School in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire, after coming out as trans in seventh grade.
Huckman showed great talent in the sprints and hurdles but was not dominant on a statewide level. In her senior year, she won several events in small and mid-size meets, and had sixth place and 10th place finishes in the Division II indoor state championships.
The proposed bans appall her.
"It's so demeaning toward my group of people," she said. "We're all human beings. We do sports for the love of it."
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I dont think that by itself trans in girls sports is a good enough reason to deny trans people equal rights. It is not a major problem in this country.
Playing in sports isn't a right. Kids are excluded from sports for many reasons mostly poor performance but sometimes medical reasons also poor grades, misbehavior in school or on the field, Steroid use, and cheating. Since it would be Cheating for a transexual to compete against girls on girls sports teams if they were allowed to join the team they couldn't actually compete without cheating which would get them kicked of the team and possibly get the whole team in trouble with the league. The world is an unfair place, it would be nice if it wasn't but it is so we should try to minimize the unfairness whenever possible. It is crazy to create a unfair condition for thousands of girls because you are afraid to be unfair to one or two transexuals. Whether something is a major problem depends on whether it is or could directly have a negative effect you, no private citizen in America has ever owned a nuke but it is illegal just the same.
If you have a state where maybe 50,000 girls compete in middle school and high school sports and maybe 50 out of those 50,0000 are trans, do you think that justifies discrimination against all trans girls in that state whether they play sports or not?
Rights should not be denied based on numbers that are miniscule.
Don't the 50,000 Biological Girls have the right to Fair Competition. It is not discrimination, Girls sports are for Girls and Transexuals are a different gender altogether. If they want to play sports they need their own league.
The Associated Press wrote an entire long story about how they could find few examples of trans competing in girls sports. The article speaks for itself.
It has happened and it was a big problem. The two in Connecticut won 1st and 2nd in the State Championships because of their unfair advantage, they unfairly stole those victories from biological women. How many times should biological women be victimized before we act?
During ordinary season competition, maybe it's not much of a problem. Get to playoffs and state tournaments, and it becomes a big problem, especially in individual sports like track and wrestling.
All humans have 23 chromosomes. 22 of them are the same in male and female. The last one, 23rd, for the female contains 2 "X" chromosomes and males contain one "X" and one "Y".
Those are the only two genders - male and female. You are what your chromosomes make you.
That is not true among many American Indian tribes.
True. Most, if not all, Native American Tribes believe there are Two Spirit individuals, who are fully accepted and respected by their Tribe.
That is incorrect.
Also, it is incorrect that all humans have 23 chromosomes. Most have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Some do not.
Sorry - got the information off of MedlinePLUS - figured they knew what they were talking about.
They don't?
In humans, each cell normally contains 23 pairs of chromosomes, for a total of 46. Twenty-two of these pairs, called autosomes, look the same in both males and females. The 23rd pair, the sex chromosomes, differ between males and females. Females have two copies of the X chromosome , while males have one X and one Y chromosome .
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Yes, as I said, 23 pairs of chromosomes, not 23 total. And that is the usual number. It does not hold true for those with trisomy (think Down's syndrome), Turner's, and Klinefelter's syndromes.
As far as gender, some are intersex - their gender is ambiguous. This can be due to chromosomal abnormalities, enzyme deficiencies as a result of mutations, abnormal sensitivity to sex hormones, exposure to excess sex hormones in utero - many reasons. It's not as black and white as many biology classes make it out to be.
Trans "girls" should compete with other trans "girls", not against biological females
President Biden made an executive order to protect the rights of transgender people regarding housing ,employment, and educational opportunities. The girls sports issue falls under the banner of "education". Should a college be able to refuse admission to a transgender person on the basis of the sexual orientation?
The sports aspect is a byproduct of the application of the equal rights provisions, not the main intent. In any case it is almost a non existent issue.
I, by the way, am not in favor of transgenders playing girls sports.
What prompted the legislation to protect transgender rights? Apparently there hasn't been a need to protect transgender rights either since no examples can be found. The whole thing has been a concocted political controversy to divide the country. Who's responsible for that? And why aren't they held accountable for dividing the country to score political points?
If a transgender woman is convicted of sexual assault, will they serve their sentence in a men's prison or a women's prison?
Bullshit!
Meh ... everyone knows transfolk breed more quickly than transvermin, transvarmints and Transylvanians ... by tomorrow afternoon they'll be everywhere transfiguring transportation to transanimate the 'grey normals'!
And yet it is deserving of every ounce of attention it receives because it was so outrageous.
How many more times should an obvious injustice like that happen before you decide to legislate against it? The fact is if we let a bunch of cases like that go without a reaction, then when we finally got around to outlawing it, advocates would moan and cry that we never had a problem with it before. Well, we do have a problem with it and we are saying so right away.
By the way, you can be a supporter of transgender people and their rights and still have sense enough to see that this particular, very specific circumstance of trans females in girls sports is something that should not be allowed. "Supporting" someone doesn't mean you just let them have absolutely anything they want without examining the consequences.
Muscle strength, size and composition following 12 months of gender-affirming treatment in transgender individuals: retained advantage for the transwomen
Ultimately, blanket bans may not be necessary, and there may be some fair way athletic organizations can work with the transfemale athlete. But right now, there is a lot of pressure from advocates to just let anything go, and any resistance to that at all is attacked as bigotry.
Any rules that required Cross-Sex hormone treatment could open up liabilities. They could later say they were forced to do it as a requirement to play sports. Right now all they have to do is say they are Trans. I don't want Girls to have to face unfair competition but nether would I want to require, advocate, or incentivize Cross-Sex hormone treatment or surgeries in children.
Preemptive legislation to to fight future assumed leftist circumstances. This is the child of faux outrage meets conspiracy theory. How creative!