The Debate Over Transgender Athletes still continues
Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald Trump continuously touted transgender athletes as a point of discussion on his second term agenda. He would “keep men out of women’s sports” was one of his major talking points. The message hit home with many of his supporters: surveys suggested a large segment of the electorate believed support for transgender rights had gone too far. Although they are a relatively small number of transgender athletes, their participation is drawing big attention.
Trump’s comments featured an ugly language marked by misidentifying women Olympic athletes as men and condemning their participation in women’s sports. In word, he proposed a bigger concern around the rights transgender people have, specifically on the playing fields and even in education, which he cast as an effort to protect women’s sports. He promised to, on day one, cut federal funding for schools that pushed transgender and critical race theory, institutions that supported gender identity in sports.
One powerful piece to this is Title IX, the federal law guaranteeing that in the sports arena one gender or the other fares no better than the other. Under his first administration, Trump’s education secretary Betsy DeVos issued a narrower reading of Title IX, narrower definition of sexual harassment, less investigation. But the Biden administration expanded protections for LGBTQ+ students under Title IX although not transgender athletes. As Trump returns, so presumably will the definition of “sex” for Title IX purposes by redefining sex as the gender assigned at birth, potentially closing the door on transgender athletes.
How many transgender athletes are there, anyway, and why do we care so much about whether they compete on the same team as non-transgender athletes? For example, research from last year’s Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network survey found that only 5 percent of high school students who identified as transgender were involved in sports. The issue though, has turned into a talking point for politics. At the collegiate level, organizations like the NCAA and NAIA have policies with regard to transgender athletes, yet the policies differ widely by sport and institution.
The issue of transgender athletes is likely to remain contentious in the years to come as debates at the local and national levels continue, perhaps spawning still more of legislative action. The future of gay participation in sports will depend on politics and changing interpretations of laws like Title IX.
