Background
In 2022, antitransgender student athletics bills were introduced in 29 states in the United States. Antitransgender sports legislation often requires that all students be on sports teams and compete in sports competitions based on their gender assigned at birth. These efforts assume that transgender girls—often framed as cisgender boys claiming to be girls—hold biological advantages in girls’ sports, effectively undermining fairness in sports.
Activists posit that antitransgender athletics efforts are also motivated by anti-Blackness in that they reflect long-standing gendered racist discrimination toward Black women for being deemed “too masculine” (Clifton, 2021). Without conclusive evidence that transgender girls are “biologically male,” this policy and legislation stands on antitransgender accusations that have historically and contemporarily disproportionately been used to discriminate against Black women in the U.S. and abroad.
Antitransgender sports efforts increasingly emerged following the high-profile cases of Andraya Yearwood and Terry Miller, two Black transgender high school girls competing in girls’ track teams in Connecticut. Despite having previously defeated Yearwood and Miller, three White cisgender girls were plaintiffs in a February 2020 lawsuit that argued that transgender girls’ participation in girls’ sports competitions violates protections against gender-based discrimination under Title IX (Clifton, 2021). In April 2021, a federal judge dismissed the lawsuit.
As of November 2021, 10 states have enacted antitransgender sports ban legislation: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Mississippi, Montana, South Dakota (by Executive Order), Tennessee, Texas, and West Virginia. However, these efforts have not been met without opposition—in addition to local and national grassroots movements, the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, and the Human Rights Campaign have filled lawsuits across the U.S. in opposition of antitransgender student athletics legislation.