Transgender athletes want to participate in school sports for the same reason as anybody else: to find a sense of belonging and social engagement, to be a part of a team, and to challenge themselves. But states and schools across the country are trying to exclude trans people from enjoying the benefits of sports on equal terms with their cisgender peers. Not only do these proposed laws discriminate against trans youth in ways that compromise their health, social and emotional development, and safety, they also raise a host of privacy concerns.

The organizations leading these attacks on trans athletes’ rights are the same organizations that pushed false myths about trans people in restrooms. Just like it was never about restrooms, today’s fight is not about sports. It’s about erasing and excluding trans people from participation in all aspects of public life. It’s about creating “solutions” to “problems” that don’t exist and, in the process, harming some of the most vulnerable young people in the country. Meanwhile, leading advocates for women’s sports support inclusion of women and girls who are transgender and warn that these efforts will ultimately harm all athletes in women’s sports.

"I Just Want to Run"

Lindsay Hecox

Lindsay is a college student at Boise State University. She wants to run on the track team because she loves to run, and loves the experience of building friendships and solidarity with her teammates. As a girl, Lindsay’s only option is to run on the girls’ team, but a new law in Idaho would ban her from doing so because she is transgender. Lindsay sued in 2020 and is represented by the ACLU and the ACLU of Idaho, Legal Voice, and Cooley LLP. For updates on Lindsay’s case, visit the Hecox v. Little case page.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeL5R5N_3L8

Andraya Yearwood

Andraya is a recent high school graduate who ran on her school’s girls’ track team. A lawsuit was filed against her school and the state of Connecticut by cisgender students because. The ACLU and ACLU of Connecticut joined the lawsuit in on behalf of Andraya and Terry Miller, another student. Both Terry and Andraya have graduated from high school and no longer compete in track, but anti-trans groups are suing to take away any record of their past achievements. For updates on Andraya’s case, visit the Soule et al v. CT Association of Schools et al case page.

Trans athletes — particularly Black trans women — face systemic barriers to participation in athletics and all aspects of public life.  This exclusion contributes to the high rates of homelessness, suicidality, and violence that Black trans women and girls face.

Debunking Myths About Trans Athletes

The attacks on trans student-athletes are rooted in the same kind of gender discrimination and stereotyping that has held back cisgender women athletes for centuries. Transgender girls are often told that they are not girls (and conversely transgender boys are told they are not really boys) based on inaccurate stereotypes about biology, athleticism, and gender. In reality, trans women and girls have been competing in women’s sports at all levels around the world. Despite the hundreds if not thousands of trans women competing, only a handful have had any success at the high school and collegiate level. And women’s sports have continued to grow and thrive in states with policies that allow trans student athletes to compete.

Everything we know from major medical and mental health associations is that affirming trans youth in their gender is a critical part of improving physical and mental health outcomes for this population.

https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbt-rights/four-myths-about-trans-athletes-debunked/

State Bills

In 2020, 18 states introduced legislation that would ban transgender student athletes from participating in school sports. As of February 2021, 24 states have introduced similar legislation.

Idaho was the first and only state to pass such a ban. In August 2020, a federal judge blocked Idaho’s law targeting transgender student athletes, recognizing that “it is not just the constitutional rights of transgender girls and women athletes at issue but … the constitutional rights of every girl and woman athlete in Idaho.” The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to hear arguments in May in the appeal of the lower court’s decision and could rule any time after that. Briefs in opposition to this law and in support of transgender student athletes have been filed by women’s rights groups, medical experts, athletes, and coaches.

https://www.aclu.org/legislation-affecting-lgbt-rights-across-country

Federal Policies

On Jan. 20, the Biden administration issued an executive order aimed at addressing discrimination against LGBTQ people. Recent polls indicate this order is the most popular policy enacted by the administration in its first week.

Biden’s order restored protections — it did not introduce new ones. Chase Strangio, the ACLU’s deputy director for trans justice, explains:

Contrary to a trending hashtag on social media and the polemics of a few loud voices, President Biden most certainly did not “erase women” — whatever that means. By stating the administration’s intention to follow Supreme Court precedent and federal law, at core all the newly-elected president did was lay out what the law is and agree, unlike his predecessor, to follow it. That includes, as the order makes clear, ensuring that “[c]hildren should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, the locker room, or school sports.”

Before Biden’s executive action, the Obama administration issued guidance regarding protections for transgender students under Title IX, and before that, multiple courts had already ruled that existing federal law protects transgender students from discrimination in schools. Since then, the Supreme Court has twice rejected cases challenging school policies that support transgender students (Doe v. Boyertown Area School District and Parents for Privacy v. Dallas School District No. 2). Similarly, passing the Equality Act would not introduce new rights for transgender students, including women and girls who are transgender and wish to participate in school sports.

Trans People Belong in Sports

Here’s what organizations that have fought for women athletes have to say:

Women’s Sports Foundation

The false rhetoric taking hold is a distraction to the real threats to girls and women in sports, such as lack of Title IX understanding and compliance; inequity in compensation, resources, sponsorship, and media attention; harassment and abuse of female athletes and women working in sports, the list goes on.

National Women’s Law Center

Additionally, history and modern experiences show how [Idaho’s anti-trans law] will disproportionately harm Black and Brown women and girls. Black and Brown women and girls are routinely targeted, shamed, and dehumanized for not conforming to society’s expectations of femininity … By allowing coaches, administrators, and other athletes to become the arbiters of who “looks like” a girl or a woman, [this law] will rely on and perpetuate racist and sexist stereotypes.

National Coalition for Women and Girls in Education

NCWGE supports the right of transgender and nonbinary students to learn in a safe, nondiscriminatory environment; to use names, pronouns, and identification documents consistent with their gender identity; to have full and equal access to sex-separated activities and facilities consistent with their gender identity, including athletics teams, bathrooms, and locker rooms; and to have their privacy protected in all education records, in accordance with Title IX, the reasoning in the Supreme Court’s Bostock decision, and President Biden’s Jan. 20, 2021 executive order.

Statement of 23 Women’s Rights and Gender Justice Organizations

Equal participation in athletics for transgender people does not mean an end to women’s sports. The idea that allowing girls who are transgender to compete in girls’ sports leads to male domination of female sports is based on a flawed understanding of what it means to be transgender and a misrepresentation of nondiscrimination laws.

Billie Jean King

There is no place in any sport for discrimination of any kind. I’m proud to support all transgender athletes who simply want the access and opportunity to compete in the sport they love. The global athletic community grows stronger when we welcome and champion all athletes — including LGBTQ

Megan Rapinoe

https://twitter.com/mPinoe/status/1286010384059514880?s=20

Over 150,000 Black and Brown children, disproportionately children with disabilities, are handcuffed, restrained, referred to law enforcement, and arrested in schools across the nation each year. Placing police in our schools perpetuates a chilling pattern of racial and disability discrimination that endangers and traumatizes our children and funnels them into the school to prison pipeline. School policing is a threat to our students’ civil rights and to their right to learn in safe and supportive school environments. This is why we’re calling on President Biden to stop policing our students by ending federal funding of police in schools.

Today, we sent a letter to President Biden with more than 150 organizations and individuals — including the Dignity in Schools Campaign, National Urban League, UnidosUS, YWCA USA, and the National Disability Rights Network, among others — calling on Biden to issue an executive order eliminating federal funding of police in schools and to work with Congress toward this goal. There are currently 14 million students in schools with police and no nurses, social workers, or psychologists. Instead of pouring money into law enforcement, President Biden must redirect the additional $300 million designated for community policing — which often goes into placing police in schools — and invest it in our communities. This money should be spent on community-led and community-centered safety strategies and getting more counselors and other supportive school staff, not cops, into our schools.

School districts across the country receive federal funding from the Department of Justice to hire police for their schools. Police in schools do what they are trained to do — detain, handcuff, and arrest — and students of color and students with disabilities are often the ones who pay the price.

In Osceola County, Florida, a school police officer body-slammed Taylor Bracey, a 16-year-old Black girl, to the concrete ground as she was walking down the school hallway. She was knocked unconscious and experienced a concussion, and now has memory loss and other traumas.

In San Antonio, Texas, a 7-year-old Latino boy with autism had an outburst during class at his elementary school. What was the school police officer’s response? He handcuffed the crying child, put him into a patrol vehicle, and drove him to emergency detention at a behavioral hospital.

Sadly, these are not isolated incidents. Students of color and students with disabilities are up to three times more likely to be referred to police and arrested in schools across the nation. And if historical trends in the data hold true, law enforcement in schools will continue to disproportionately target students of color, students with disabilities, and students of color with disabilities.

In response, we’ve seen communities across the country pushing their schools to divest funding from police and reinvest those funds in student mental health care and other supportive services. Several school boards and cities across the country have already decided that police no longer belong in their schools. For example, a large district in Oakland, California eliminated its school police department following strong community-led advocacy, and committed to a community-driven process to develop an alternative safety plan that would include funds for mental health professionals and other staff to support all students of color. In Portland, Oregon, smaller districts redirected its school police funding to hire more counselors, social workers, and other direct student supports. However, far too many other localities continue to use police in schools, despite the demands of students, parents, and community members.

President Biden has an important part to play to stop the policing of our students. Federal funding plays a key role. It is a core reason so many Black and Brown communities have police regularly stationed in their schools. The DOJ’s COPS Office awarded $50 million to 160 school districts and municipalities for school police in 2020 alone. While municipal governments and state legislatures have a role in keeping our students safe from police violence and trauma, President Biden should lead from Washington, D.C.

This is a unique opportunity for President Biden to uphold his administration’s promise to advance racial equity, redress harm to children with disabilities, and set a strong example for our nation’s schools. The time to invest in policing has passed. It is now time to invest in our students.

This month, the ACLU launched its Systemic Equality agenda — an initiative designed to center equity and attack our country’s legacy of systemic racism by addressing the imbalance of political power, challenging policies that ravage Black communities, and furthering efforts to advance our racial justice work. As a part of this ambitious effort, the ACLU is making an unprecedented investment in the people and region where vulnerable communities are most affected by local and national regressive policies: the South.

From Reconstruction to the attacks on democracy following the Black Lives Matter movement mobilizations this summer and the historic 2020 election, there is and has always been political backlash in retaliation to the advancement of marginalized people — particularly in the deep South. Those rooted in on-the-ground organizing and advocacy work in such places as Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana know that investment in people who live and fight in the South will lead to results that reverberate across the nation.

The ACLU has a long history of protecting civil rights and advancing racial equality in the South. We were founded nationally more than a hundred years ago, and by the late 1960s had an affiliate office open in every state in the South and a Southern Regional office. ACLU staff here have worked closely with our partners over the last 50 years to make progress in dismantling the Jim Crow system and to fight for the right to vote. Over the last several years, the ACLU invested deeply in its affiliates across the South, creating new opportunities for additional legal, communications, electoral, organizing, and legislative staff.

But if the last four years have taught us anything, it is that the South is still ground zero, and we have much work to do. Two years ago, the leadership of our Southern affiliates began to talk about how to take our work to the next level: How can we more effectively address the challenges in the region together, rooted in the South’s unique history of racial oppression and violence and equally remarkable history of civil rights struggles and victories? By the end of last year, we launched the Southern Collective, a collaborative project of the national office and the ACLU affiliate offices of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia.

Together, we launched the Southern Voting Project, a regional initiative to protect and expand voting rights — one of the most critical racial justice issues — to operate at our highest capacity during the 2020 election. We engaged in election protection and get out the vote efforts, fought back against voter suppression efforts, and helped people get access to absentee ballots during the pandemic. We invested funds, ran electoral bootcamps, built new voter contact infrastructure, and joined together to educate and activate historically disenfranchised communities in the South. And we saw immediate results.

As a result of this investment, Alabama and Mississippi, which do not have early voting, saw record-breaking numbers in turnout boosted by the ACLU’s litigation and advocacy efforts that focused on expanding absentee access before Election Day. The ACLU of Tennessee’s voter contact program more than doubled its goals for volunteers taking action. The ACLU of Kentucky reached tens of thousands of newly eligible voters with criminal convictions whose right to vote had recently been restored. And after a chaotic and understaffed June primary, the ACLU of Georgia recruited nearly 3,000 people to be poll workers to address the massive staffing shortage due to COVID-19 and helped place almost 500 poll workers in key locations. In Alabama, we launched the state’s first statewide election protection initiative. We achieved these results by working together, learning from one another, and standing on each other’s shoulders to reach new heights.

Over the next two years, the ACLU will increase its investment directly in these Southern states to grow our Southern affiliates’ work on strengthening voting rights and democracy, ensuring reproductive justice in Black and Brown communities, and fighting for reparations.

Our Systemic Equality initiative is more than a policy platform; it is a culmination of the ACLU’s commitment to racial justice and our goal to be in alignment with the work we do externally. The support and information sharing we provide to local organizers and advocates in our affiliates across the country — and in the South — is paramount. We have long understood that systems do not create change, but our desire for liberation, equity, and equality ignites it.