Trans rights

NCAA President Charlie Baker told a Senate panel there are fewer than 10 transgender athletes he is aware of who currently compete in college sports, pouring cold water on an issue Republicans have said is a nationwide problem and one that is increasingly fraught territory for Democrats.

“How many athletes are there in the U.S. in NCAA schools?” Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) asked Baker during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday on federal regulations around sports gambling.

“Five hundred and ten thousand,” said Baker, a former Republican governor of Massachusetts who has served since 2023 as president of the NCAA, which governs intercollegiate athletics at more than 1,000 colleges and universities across the country.

“How many transgender athletes are you aware of?” Durbin asked.

“Less than 10,” Baker said. He did not say whether that number includes transgender men. 

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A recent cross-sectional study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that transgender women who completed more than one year of hormone replacement therapy performed worse than cisgender women in tests measuring lower-body strength and lung functioning.

Trans women’s bone density, which is linked to muscle strength, was found to be equivalent to that of cisgender women, and there were no meaningful differences in levels of hemoglobin, which facilitates oxygen delivery to muscles and is related to greater aerobic performance.

An earlier study, also published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, found that transgender women who went through male puberty retained an athletic edge after one year of hormone therapy. The study’s lead author has cautioned against using the results to categorically ban transgender athletes from competitive sports. 

I'm shocked, I tell you. Shocked!

The researchers found that respondents who viewed female athletes as less deserving of attention, support, and media coverage were more likely to oppose transgender inclusion in sports. For example, individuals who disagreed with statements like “Women’s sports deserve the same amount of media coverage as men’s sports” were significantly less likely to support transgender athletes’ rights.

The researchers also found that adherence to traditional standards of femininity—such as prioritizing thinness and attractiveness—was a strong predictor of opposition to transgender athlete inclusion. For instance, respondents who endorsed the idea that women should be thin or that women’s muscles were less attractive were less supportive of transgender athletes competing in alignment with their gender identity.

Similarly, those who agreed with statements like “Female athletes will never be as good as male athletes” were more likely to oppose allowing transgender athletes to compete according to their gender identity and to support sex testing.

Negative attitudes toward homosexuality were another powerful predictor of opposition to transgender athletes’ rights. Participants who expressed homophobic views, such as agreeing with statements like “I would be disappointed if I found out my child was homosexual,” were significantly more likely to support sex testing and oppose transgender inclusion.

According to the researchers, the findings suggest that opposition to transgender inclusion often reflects efforts to uphold traditional gender norms and maintain the existing gender order rather than a genuine commitment to advancing women’s sports.

In May 2023, Newsweek interviewed researcher and medical physicist Joanna Harper, and asked her to estimate the number of transgender athletes competing in US sports.

“While we don’t know the exact number of trans women competing in NCAA sports, I would be very surprised if there were more than 100 of them in the women’s category,” Harper replied.

That number is even smaller when it comes to middle school and high school athletes. Newsweek also spoke to Gillian Branstetter, a spokesperson for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), who told Newsweek that Save Women’s Sports, a leading voice in the bid to ban transgender athletes from competing in girls’ sports, identified only five transgender athletes competing on girls’ teams in school sports for grades K through 12.

Yes, that’s right. Not 5000, not 500, not even 50 – just five trans student-athletes. All of this legislation, work, lobbying and anger – is aimed at preventing a tiny handful of young people from playing school sports. 

This is a tough read.

Judge Allen Winsor, a Trump appointee, justified his preliminary ruling in Keohane v. Dixon under highly questionable legal and scientific grounds. He repeatedly misgendered the plaintiff while citing nonsensical claims about the medical treatment for trans people that go against WPATH guidelines and all known medical science on gender-affirming care, such as labeling gender dysphoria a “short-term delusion.”

Winsor also professed support for “psychotherapy” practices that are much more akin to “conversion therapy,” a long-debunked practice which doubles the risk of suicide of trans people forced to take part.

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Under the new FDC policy, women face having “their heads forcibly shaved and receive disciplinary action for possessing any female undergarments and makeup.” According to a legal declaration filed on behalf of Michelle Ward, a trans woman in a Florida prison:

   The loss of my hair, along with female undergarments and makeup, has been earth-shattering for me…I stay awake crying many nights.

Forced head shaving beckons back to the dark history of Native American residential schools in the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which mandated Native American boys have their hair cut to conform their appearances with Western gender standards.

The purpose of this policy was to humiliate Native American children and rob them of their basic humanity and connection to their culture and tribal identities. The stories of the women described in this article show that the intentions behind the FDC policy are no less cruel or dehumanizing in their nature. 

The executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global challenges his readers:

The transgender community accounts for less than 1% of the U.S. population, which makes them an easy and “safe” target for persecution. But these are real people from real families.

Taking away their rights, taking away their health care, shaming them, scapegoating them — this is truly a death sentence. And if you gave a damn, you would speak up for them.

Whatever you think you know about transgender people is probably wrong if you don’t actually know any transgender people. If you heard their stories, you would know they are sincere. They do not seek attention; it’s only the people attacking them who seek attention.

Here’s the main thing I want to impart for now: Transgender identity is real. It is authentic. You do not have to understand it to accept it. And even if you won’t accept it, what harm is there in letting other people live peacefully and in good health? How does the existence of transgender people threaten you other than challenging your too-small view of the world?

The French Society of Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetology (SFEDP) recently commissioned its own version of the Cass Review, and this study reached almost the exact opposite conclusions of Cass […]

Upon reading both the Cass Review and the SFEDP Review, what immediately jumps out is the very different tone of each—Cass takes a tone that feels skeptical to the point of excess, offering mysteriously curt phrasing, statements rife with implications of harm or conspiracy by mainstream providers, and an overall sense of invalidation. By contrast, the SFEDP Review reads like a scientific paper—its language is straightforward and sterile, and there is none of the innuendo of Cass. Reading both side by side feels almost like traveling from a land of paranoia and conspiracy into levelheaded reality.

These basic differences in language imply very different approaches to working with trans minors—gender-affirming vs gender-critical.

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Perhaps nowhere is the difference between the Cass Review and the SFEDP Review more clear than here: Cass bemoans the lack of good evidence and recommends generating it, whereas SFEDP declares that it is ready to follow the science by supporting minors in their transition. One cannot help but suspect that even if further research is conducted, in another 20 years another Cass will come along and demand another round of research into trans youth.

One idea that Tennessee has floated — that sex-based laws related to biological sex difference are shielded from scrutiny — is particularly pernicious. As I have shown in research, this has never been the court’s approach. And for good reason. Throughout the history of sex discrimination, hiding bias behind biology has been a common tactic. Many sex-based lines that have been challenged in the court — from a male-only university admissions policy to rules distinguishing mothers and fathers when it comes to the citizenship of their children — have been couched in terms of physical sex differences. Upon examination, the court has acknowledged that sex stereotypes and not biological differences drive these laws. Without requiring that courts take a close look at all sex-based laws, we make it far too easy to legislate on sexual prejudice.

Just as important as addressing women’s subordination, equal protection has been a key tool in striking down laws that confine not just women, but men, to traditional roles and expectations. Equal protection has been used to invalidate laws that exclude men from caregiving or that require anyone to conform their behavior or appearance to sex-based conventions. In doing so, the doctrine helps to free all of us from limiting sex stereotypes.

Seen this way, it is not hard to appreciate that the law at issue here strikes at the heart of sex equality. The Tennessee law — and trans discrimination more generally — is not only about discrimination against trans people, but about ensuring that we all keep in our gender lanes. As Prelogar explained, the law here is “one that prohibits inconsistency with sex,” requiring that children born as boys and girls “look and live like boys and girls.” Tennessee’s argument would call into question the longstanding freedom we all enjoy to live our lives as we wish, regardless of sex.

A typically incandescently brilliant barnstormer from Abigail.

There is a clash going on in Britain between two fundamentally irreconcilable ideologies.

The NHS, DHSC, and many other official institutions like courts view transition as a response to a medical problem they call ‘gender dysphoria’ or ‘gender incongruence.’ From this starting point it seems appropriate that trans people have to get permission to transition: transness is a medical matter with inherent risks that ought to be controlled by “specialists.” Sometimes those specialists delay or deny permission, but that’s just part of the job. It also makes sense to ask which treatments are “most effective at treating dysphoria” and explore alternative treatments through trials, reviews, consultations, etc. I call this view ‘Pathologization.’

According to Pathologization, past treatments like electric shocks simply failed to alleviate patients’ dysphoria. These days we have more effective methods, and one day we might discover a cheap way of treating it without transition- a silver bullet conversion therapy. Doctors and managers will determine when and whether adjustments to the system are needed. Ideally they’ll engage with trans people in “stakeholder groups” but if those groups don’t get what they want that’s not a dealbreaker. Patients who suffer or die waiting are unfortunate but hey, the NHS can’t save everyone.

On the other hand, the view of an increasing number- especially young people and trans people ourselves- is that transition is a bit like pregnancy. It’s a process that may require professional assistance to bring to the happiest possible conclusion (whether completion or termination), and for this reason it is appropriate and necessary that the NHS is involved. But whether, how, and when to do it should be up to you. From this starting point there should be as few obstacles as possible: the role of doctors and managers is to facilitate and advise but never delay or deny. Prompt, reliable access to transition is a civil rights matter.

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It is vital to realise that organisations can embody an ideology even if nobody working in them believes it. I think sometimes when people hear “Organisation X is institutionally discriminatory” they interpret that as “The leaders of Organisation X are bad people.” For example;

“The Metropolitan police are institutionally racist.”

“I’ve met some police officers and they’re lovely!”

This is a mistake. To say that an organisation is institutionally discriminatory makes no comment on the character of its employees, merely the pattern of its outputs. Not everyone who controls trans healthcare is a frothing bigot; again, I have no animosity towards Colonel Korn or his colleagues. My issue is with the outputs of the system they manage.

“We have shifted this conversation so incredibly far in the direction of restrictions on trans people’s autonomy and rights in a way that was completely unfathomable to many of us even just three or four years ago,” said Chase Strangio, a lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union.

Legislation in Oklahoma and South Carolina would make it a felony to provide hormonal or surgical transition treatment to transgender people younger than 26 — an uncharted incursion into adults’ health care. Other bills in both states, and in Kansas and Mississippi, would ban such care up to age 21. And bills in more than a dozen states would ban it for minors, which Arkansas was the first to do in 2021, against the consensus of major medical organizations.

A bill in Mississippi — declaring that “separate is not inherently unequal,” an allusion to Plessy v. Ferguson, the 1896 ruling in which the Supreme Court upheld segregation — would define sex as immutably set at birth, denying transgender identities under state law. A measure in West Virginia would define “any transvestite and/or transgender exposure, performances or display” as obscene, potentially outlawing transgender people’s presence around children.

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But the bills arriving in legislatures show a movement expanding beyond what it pitched itself as.

The 25-year-olds who would be unable to receive transition care in Oklahoma and South Carolina are not, after all, children. An Arizona bill would ban drag shows on Sunday mornings whether or not minors were around. (The lawmakers who introduced those bills did not respond to requests for comment.)

Matt Sharp, senior counsel and state government relations national director for the Alliance Defending Freedom, said his group believed “gender ideology attacks the truth that every person is either male or female.”

And Mr. Schilling, of the American Principles Project, confirmed that his organization’s long-term goal was to eliminate transition care. The initial focus on children, he said, was a matter of “going where the consensus is.”

Cathryn Oakley, the state legislative director and senior counsel at the Human Rights Campaign, said the bills disproved the notion that protecting children had ever been the motivation.

“Under His wings,” one lobbyist wrote in an email. “The Devil never sleeps,” another person sent in an email chain about the distinction between gender and sex. “I pray for the 2nd coming more and more.”

These missives are part of a trove of leaked emails between South Dakota GOP Rep. Fred Deutsch, anti-trans lobbyists, and other state lawmakers about anti-trans policies that are filled with language so deeply religious that, at times, the communications read like scripts from The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s the language, one expert told VICE News, of Christian nationalists who believe they’re engaging in a holy war.

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“Know that many have prayed and are praying for you this day. Do not back down, nor should you be afraid. Know that the Lord is with you. The children of South Dakota belong to him. He is jealous over them. Let his jealousies be spoken forth in the House of Representatives of South Dakota today so that his children would be made safe. Know you are HIS representative today. Do not be afraid. Stand firm in what is right,” wrote Vernadette Broyles, a lawyer and president of the Georgia-based Children and Parental Rights Campaign, which mobilizes against “gender ideology,” in 2020.

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“It is the language of Christian nationalism,” Thomas Lecaque, an associate professor of history at Grand View University focusing on apocalyptic religion and political violence. “It is the language of people who very much believe they are doing God’s will, and it is the language of people who very much believe that they are engaged in a holy war.”

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“Stopping the existence of transgender people and the acceptance of trans people in the public sphere is to them some sort of religious imperative,” Lecaque told VICE News.“It’s particularly fascinating that this group that has all this money, control in state legislatures, control of the house, they had a presidency, is acting like somehow they are David in the struggle.”

None of this is particularly surprising, and none of it is new. Today’s Christian nationalists believe that America is an inherently holy, Christian land, and that it’s their duty to restore God’s kingdom in order for Jesus to return. Part of this means that they think the country’s laws, policies and cultural institutions should reflect evangelical Christian values, VICE News previously reported. As a result, contentious cultural and political issues, like drag queen story hours and “critical race theory” are perceived as Satanic. Indeed, the Devil came up in the leaked emails.

See also.