New York County Bans Sports Teams With Trans Women And Girls From Athletic Facilities

The bill passed by Nassau County lawmakers is the latest GOP-led effort to block transgender people from playing on teams that align with their gender identity.

Lawmakers in a New York county passed legislation on Monday that would ban female sports teams from using athletic facilities unless they exclude transgender women and girls ― the latest move in the nationwide Republican-led effort to block transgender people from playing sports on teams that align with their gender identity.

According to the legislation in Nassau County, which mostly makes up suburban Long Island, whoever is in charge of organizing girls’ or women’s sports events would be required to ask each member of the involved teams what sex they were assigned at birth. Any teammates who were not assigned female at birth would be expelled. The law would not apply to Nassau County’s boys’ and men’s sports teams or male-female teams.

The legislation was passed 12-5 by the county’s GOP-controlled legislature, which before the vote heard from more than a dozen people who opposed the proposed ban. Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, is expected to sign it into law.

“This is banning people from government property. Let’s think very carefully before we do that,” Susan Gottehrer, director of the Nassau County chapter of the New York Civil Liberties Union, said during a public comment period. “We will see you in court.”

Nassau County lawyer Victoria LaGreca was called to defend the bill before lawmakers, listing four cases in which cisgender girls were injured while competing in sports alongside transgender girls. None of the examples had occurred in New York, and LaGreca said she did not know how many instances there were of cisgender girls causing injuries while competing in sports.