More than half of states in the United States have banned transgender women and girls from female sports, including at the middle and high school age. Katelyn Burns, columnist for MSNBC and Xtra Magazine and co-host of the podcast Cancel Me Daddy, sits down with us to talk about a new Title IX rule proposed by the Biden administration and what it covers—and doesn’t cover—when it comes to the protection of trans students.
Around the US, states have been increasingly introducing and passing legislation that singles out transgender women and girls and prevents them from playing on sports teams. In Kentucky, for example, the only 11-year-old trans girl playing a school sport in the entire state helped to start a girl’s field hockey team at her school; the state’s ban on trans athletes now singularly impacts her, preventing her completely from playing on the team that she created.
During the Obama administration, Title IX for the very first time included guidance on transgender students, which stated that educational and recreational opportunities (including sports) cannot be denied to transgender students that would be given to cisgender students. Guidance under the Trump administration was revised to be more unhelpful and discriminatory. Now, the Biden administration has revised the guidelines; unlike the Obama-era guidelines, these guidelines do include exclusions for trans girls playing sports against cisgender girls. This guidance does make it more difficult for states to institute blanket sports bans, but still does not explicitly disavow discrimination against transgender students.
Links
Katelyn Burns on Xtra Magazine
Katelyn Burns: The massive Republican push to ban trans athletes, explained
Katelyn Burns: The unfalsifiability of the anti-trans sports movement
Katelyn Burns: Biden’s Hollow Trans Sports Policy Appeases The Right
Take Action Items
First and foremost, follow Katelyn Burns on Twitter. You can also find more information on Katelyn’s co-hosted podcast, Cancel Me Daddy, here.
Challenge your own perspectives on transgender student’s participation in sports. Consider the last time you heard of an openly trans women playing on a men’s sports team.
You can find more of Katelyn’s opinion pieces with
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