New York Attorney General Asks Nassau County to Repeal Transgender Athlete Ban Order

(CNN) — New York Attorney General Letitia James called on Nassau County Executive Bruce Blackman to overturn the ban on transgender athletes participating in women’s and girls’ sports, saying it was a “discriminatory and transphobic ordinance,” according to a press release.

“The law is perfectly clear: You cannot discriminate against someone based on their gender identity or expression. There is no place for hate or intolerance in New York,” James said in a statement this Friday. “This ordinance is transphobic and patently illegal. Nassau County must revoke the ordinance immediately, or we will not hesitate to take decisive legal action.”

James said the decree, which applied to more than 100 facilities under the Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums, constituted a “clear violation” of state civil and human rights laws and that all athletes in it were subject to “interrogation.” .

A decree signed on February 22 banned transgender athletes from competing in sports leagues and teams in women’s divisions at county facilities. Nassau County is an affluent suburb of Long Island.

Blackman said at the time, “What we’re saying here today with our order is that if a league or team identifies or advertises itself as a girls’ or women’s league or team, biological males compete in that league. Can’t.” He added that transgender athletes can compete in mixed or all-male leagues.

CNN has reached out to Blackman’s office for comment.

The decree was part of a crackdown on restricting the participation of transgender athletes in organized sports in the name of “equity”. In recent years, the regulatory bodies overseeing top-level sports have struggled to find a balance between inclusion and fair play, and the issue’s prominence in right-wing media has spread to affect sports as well. Local entertainment.

Ash Orr, media relations officer for the National Center for Transgender Equality, said in a statement that the mandate and similar legislation across the country would “have a direct and detrimental impact on the lives of the nation’s transgender athletes.” Nassau County and will lead it. to further isolate and stigmatize transgender athletes, as well as contribute to broader cultural narratives surrounding the trans community.”

Because there are so few elite trans athletes, there is little hard data to compare the performance of trans athletes to that of cisgender athletes.

A literature review of studies published in 2017 in the Journal of Sports Medicine found “no direct or consistent research” that trans people have an athletic advantage over their cisgender peers. A major barrier to trans participation in sports was the “lack of an inclusive and comfortable environment,” the authors wrote.

CNN’s Ashley R. Williams and Nick F. Anderson contributed to this report