Allies of transgender athletes are speaking up against the increasing wave of bills seeking to restrict transgender students from participating in team sports.
Michigan is one of at least 32 states where legislatures have passed or are considering bills to limit the participation of athletes who identify as transgender, according to Freedom for All Americans. On Friday, Alabama became the most recent state to enact such a law.
“Transgender girls participating in sports is not a documented threat,” said Joann Hoffman, Athlete Ally’s director of communication. “Transgender athletes play sports for the same reasons anybody else does because of the positive benefits sports brings and because they love the sport.
“These bills are targeting children who just wanna play sports with their friends and these bills are forcing these children off of teams, which is heartbreaking to me as a cisgender ally.”
Michigan Sen. Lana Theis, R-Brighton, introduced Senate Bill 218 on March 10. The bill seeks to block transgender student-athletes from competing on public school sports teams unless the student’s biological gender matches the gender requirements of the team.
The bill has been referred to the Senate Committee on Education and Career Readiness, which Theis chairs. A hearing has not yet been set to consider the bill.
The bill is co-sponsored by 12 other Senate Republicans.
In a press release announcing the legislation, Theis said allowing transgender students to play against students of different biological genders will threaten laws prohibiting discrimination, including Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
“As a society, we fought for generations to ensure girls and women, through Title IX, have an equal opportunity to compete in athletics on a level playing field,” Theis said in the release. “Sadly, today, identity politics threatens all that was sacrificed and gained. Across our country, biological females are losing opportunities at titles, records, scholarships, and, at times, participation itself.”
Advocates says there’s simply not any evidence that transgender girls have a competitive advantage or that participating of transgender students in youth sports has any negative effect.
“That’s not consistent with what we’re seeing in the many states that have policies that allow transgender student-athletes to compete consistent with their gender identity,” said Asaf Orr, senior staff attorney for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “We haven’t seen any changes in the competitiveness of women’s sports since transgender women have been allowed to compete with their gender identity.”
A study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine tested 75 trans men and trans women starting gender-declaring hormones while in the U.S. Air Force for approximately 10 years. The athletic advantage that trans women displayed over cisgender women before starting gender declaring hormones declined with the use of feminine therapy, the report said.
Scientists have warned against legislation because few studies have been done on the performance of transgender athletes, according to the Gender Justice Organization.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association released its “Inclusion of Transgender Student-Athletes” policy in August 2011 encouraging sports programs to enact their own policies to include transgender students in sports. Michigan State University has included a transgender policy for its intramural and club sports.
Transgender advocates say the myth that trans girls will take over women’s sports is simply untrue.
“For years they’ve fought for women’s rights or (what that may) mean to them, that’s how they feel about that, but I also feel like transgender women are women too,” said Bridget LaKyra Genne, director at the Ruth Ellis Center and who also identifies as a transgender woman.