A county on Long Island, New York, is closing more than 100 facilities to sports organizations that allow transgender girls and women to compete on teams that match their gender identity, positioning itself in the national debate about how and when transgender people do -Athletes who do this can participate in women's sports.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, signed an executive order Thursday requiring any sports league or organization that wants to use a county Parks Department facility to “explicitly” designate its teams as male, female or co-ed, based on the assignment of members sex at birth.
The directive comes into effect immediately and does not require legislative approval. The governor, New York attorney general and the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said the ban was illegal and suggested legal action could be imminent.
The move was the latest in a series of efforts by authorities across the country to ban transgender athletes from participating on teams that match their gender identity, particularly in girls' and women's sports. According to ESPN, in recent years, more than 20 states have passed laws banning transgender athletes from playing school sports on teams that do not correspond to the gender they were assigned at birth.
And last year, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban transgender women and girls from participating in women's sports. The bill has no chance of passing the Democratic-controlled Senate or being signed by President Biden.
According to Mr. Blakeman's office, the executive action signed Thursday that does not prevent transgender boys and men from competing on boys' and men's teams will affect thousands of teams at all levels that compete at Nassau County facilities.
Last year, the Big East Conference, home to 11 college athletics programs, held its swimming championships in the county. A Big East spokesman said the championship will be held in Indianapolis this year and no decision has been made about future events.
There was a quick backlash against the order.
“This discriminatory move not only undermines the principles of inclusivity and fairness, but also perpetuates harmful stereotypes and exclusion,” said David Kilmnick, president of the LGBT Network, a nonprofit group based on Long Island and Queens.
“New York State law expressly protects the rights of transgender people and ensures their equal participation in all aspects of life, including sports,” he added. “An attempt to enforce such a ban would be futile and legally untenable.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul accused Mr. Blakeman of “bullying trans children” in a statement to The New York Times on Thursday.
“There is nothing less than trying to score cheap political points by targeting some of our state’s most vulnerable children,” she said. “We are proud that New York has some of the strongest protections in the country for the LGBTQ+ community, and my administration is committed to enforcing these laws.”
Letitia James, the New York attorney general, called the order “transphobic” and “deeply dangerous.” Bobby Hodgson, the director of LGBTQ litigation at the ACLU's New York chapter, said in a statement that the organization would “consider all options to stop this.”
Jami Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Toledo and an expert on LGBT politics, said in an interview that Mr. Blakeman ignored both state law and state Supreme Court precedent in signing the order.
Under the New York Human Rights Law, gender identity and expression is a protected class in “all areas of law, including employment, public accommodations, public and private housing, education, and credit.” Ms Taylor said county sports facilities would be considered places of public accommodation.
“This is a general attempt by Republicans nationally to focus on the issue of transgender rights in an election season,” Ms. Taylor said. “It’s really just a culture war issue that they think is beneficial.”
The New York Supreme Court ruled in 1977 in Richards v. United States Tennis Association that Renée Richards, one of the first openly transsexual professional athletes, could participate in the women's draw at the US Open, rejecting the tennis association's claim to Ms. Richards back pass a sex chromatin test.
“As early as 1977, a New York court recognized that sex discrimination claims under the Human Rights Act may be brought by individuals alleging discrimination based on their gender identity,” states New York State’s Guidance on Gender Identity Protection.
Representative Gina Sillitti, a Democrat who represents parts of Nassau County, said that Mr. Blakeman signed the order to score political points.
“He is issuing an unnecessary executive order to generate headlines that I fear could lead to a culture of hatred toward transgender children,” Ms. Sillitti said. “Words are important. Far too often, hateful rhetoric leads to hateful actions.”
The executive order was announced at a time when threats and harassment against transgender and non-binary people, especially children, are on the rise, and bans on exercise and restroom use are becoming more prevalent.
Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old who used they/them pronouns, died this week in a small Oklahoma town outside Tulsa after an altercation in the girls' bathroom at her high school.
Earlier this month, a Utah school district had to seek police protection for a high school student's basketball player who a school board member had claimed was transgender.
Mr. Blakeman, a longtime fixture in Long Island politics, won the county executive's office in 2021 with a campaign that strongly opposed mask mandates, requirements that had angered some suburban parents and businesses, and a focus on crime and bail reform.
His victory, part of a wave of GOP victories in Nassau in the fall, catapulted Mr. Blakeman to hero status in Republican circles in the state, with defiant appearances on Fox News only burnishing that reputation.
But Nassau, with a population of about 1.4 million people, is far from a monolithic GOP stronghold, with more registered Democrats than registered Republicans and nearly 300,000 independent voters.
That moderate stance was demonstrated last week with a victory for Democrat Tom Suozzi in a special election in the Nassau County-majority Third Congressional District.
At a news conference on Thursday, Mr. Blakeman joined Kim Russell, a former women's lacrosse coach at Oberlin College in Ohio who was removed from her position after publicly criticizing the inclusion of transgender women in women's sports.
The speakers stood at a lectern, flanked by school-age girls holding signs that read “Protect Women’s Sports.”
“I’m here first and foremost to support all these young girls here,” said Ms. Russell, who does not live in Nassau County. “Without the opportunity to engage in single-sex competition, these young girls could lose out on opportunities.”
When Mr. Blakeman was asked at the news conference how many transgender athletes compete in Nassau County, he said he didn't know. He said that less than 1 percent of the county's residents identify as transgender, without citing a source, and that he was not sure how many, if any, competed at county facilities.
Instead, in his remarks, he referred to transgender girls competing on women's teams outside of New York and said he wanted to “stay ahead of the competition here in Nassau County.”
As Mr. Blakeman signed the order, a small group of protesters gathered outside the county administrative and legislative building where the news conference was held, chanting, “Trans children are our children.”
Juli Grey-Owens, the executive director of Gender Equality New York, a group that attended the protest, said there are about 17,000 transgender people in Nassau and Suffolk counties, which have a combined population of about 2.9 million.
The bigger question, Ms. Grey-Owens said, is how many transgender athletes are even involved in local women's and girls' sports.
“Every time that question is asked, they come back with no answer,” she said. “Because they have a solution to a problem.”
Jesse McKinley contributed reporting.