Image taken from PBS.
Over the last few decades, the LGBTQ+ community has made tremendous progress in the United States and some other countries. However, there is still a long way to go in most of the world towards liberation, and unfortunately we are in the midst of a backlash which focuses on a particularly vulnerable subset: transgender people. How did we get here, and what does this mean for the future?
First, an explanation of some terminology that will be used in this article. Gender identity is a person’s internal sense of their gender. A transgender (or trans) person is a person whose gender identity is different from that which they were assigned at birth. About 0.6% of the population is thought to be trans, though the real number may be much higher due to social pressure keeping individuals from publicly stating it. The opposite is a cisgender (or cis) person, whose gender identity matches what they were assigned at birth. Some but not all trans people undergo medical transition, where they use hormones and surgeries to modify their bodies to appear more as their gender identity. A trans person is referred to based on their gender identity, i.e. a trans woman is a person who was assigned male at birth (AMAB) and identifies as a woman, or a trans man is a person who was assigned female at birth (AFAB) and identifies as a man. Some trans people are also non-binary, meaning that their gender identities are not completely a man or a woman. Discrimination against or hatred of trans people is called transphobia.
Trans people have made strides towards equality in many countries over the past few decades. In the United States, it is now possible to update one’s birth certificate and other documents to indicate a change in one’s name and gender, and it is possible for trans adults to access hormonal treatments through informed consent. However, trans people have also wound up in the crosshairs of the latest right wing culture war. While the right has never liked trans people, in the last few years they have ramped up their opposition. Now that gay marriage has been legal and homophobia is less socially acceptable, conservatives have found that trans people remain an acceptable target within the LGBTQ+ community. One of the most visible faces of this onslaught is within sports.
Transgender people in sports originally entered the public radar in the 1970s, when trans woman tennis player Renée Richards sought to compete in the women’s division. At the time, she was granted that ability, but the topic of trans inclusion in sports has come up again more recently, generally with objections to the idea of transgender women competing as women. Recent examples of this include the backlashes to Olympic weightlifter Laurel Hubbard and Penn swimmer Lia Thomas. Opponents of trans participation in sports cite the idea of an inborn and unfair biological advantage for trans women, as most transgender women have undergone a testosterone-dominant puberty. This ignores the reality that in order to compete in women’s sports, trans women must undergo a set amount (varied by sporting body) of hormone replacement therapy and have hormone levels lower than their cis competitors. Estrogen-based hormone replacement theory causes reduction in muscle mass and bone density, reducing any potential advantage caused by prior testosterone levels. It also ignores the actual data from the last few decades of trans athletes competing, which is that none have set records or won Olympic medals. If trans women truly had such an advantage, there would be a disproportionate number winning such accolades, but this simply is not happening.
However, this is about more than sports. It is about framing transgender people as a threat to society. These attacks tend to focus on stoking fear of trans women, as transphobia and misogyny have a strong overlap. Additionally, this allows the framing of trans women as a threat to cis women. As above, they claim that trans people are a threat to women’s sports or will take over women’s sports, but they also promote other false claims, such as the “bathroom predator” myth, which claims that if trans women are allowed to use women’s restrooms, they will sexually assault cis women and girls. There is no evidence to suggest this is the case, and even if such an incident did happen, it would not justify collective punishment of all transgender people. This was the motivation behind North Carolina’s infamous 2017 “bathroom bill,” which forced transgender people to use the bathrooms of the gender they were assigned at birth.
Sports and bathrooms are only the tip of the iceberg. While these are the conversations that happen in the public eye, they are window dressing for the real attack on trans rights going on in legislatures across the country. Much of this attack targets trans youth, as they are particularly vulnerable and “think of the children” has long been a slogan of anti-LGBTQ+ movements going back to Anita Bryant. Right now, 30 state legislatures in the US are currently debating or passing bills restricting trans youth, everything from banning medical care to forcing schools to out trans youth to their families, to banning any mention in curricula of LGBTQ+ people existing. This is not completely discrete from sports, as multiple states have also deliberated laws to ban trans girls from playing on girls’ sports teams or even require girls in sports to undergo genital inspections to prove that they are not trans. This particular law, requiring genital inspections of minors, has nothing to do with fairness or safety and everything to do with control. It is a violation of basic bodily autonomy for young girls.
Worse, in Texas last week the governor declared that trans healthcare for children was child abuse and expressed intention for the state to separate trans children from their families. This will not make these children cease to be trans, it will only make their mental health worse and tear apart families, and is a horrifying thought to many. It is also a step towards eliminating trans people outright, because after the transphobes go after trans children, they can restrict adults as well. The transphobia does not end with bans from sport, but a ban from existence.
Outside of legislation, there is also the social attack. Rhetoric that trans people are dangerous provides a justification for violence against trans people, which is at an all-time high. This is itself likely an underestimate, as much goes unreported. This danger in turn makes it harder for trans people to be open about their identities, and thus it is harder to fight against lies and legislative targeting. Trans people are a very small minority, we cannot fight this on our own. We need cisgender allies to help us, to take some of the burden from us.
The long-term goal of transphobes is to remove trans people from existence, and they are enabling and normalizing this through laws and culture wars. If they cannot physically remove trans people, they want us to be unable to participate in daily life. These attempts to ban us from spaces, to prevent children from coming out, are building up to this end goal of banning trans people outright. It is important to see this for what it is: an attack on trans people. This is bigger than sports.