Nassau County transgender athlete bill is a loser

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman has a knack for generating controversies that will advance his political agenda. His culture war crusade “to protect the integrity of women's sports” is now in its 2.0 version after the county legislature this week passed an impractical and likely illegal local law that seeks to ban transgender women and girls from using more than 100 athletic county facilities unless they play on male or coed teams.

Soon after Blakeman signs the law that no one demanded to resolve a problem that doesn't exist, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the state attorney general are expected to sue. Blakeman will get more of the headlines he craves while taxpayers will receive more costly legal bills. Blakeman has already lost two lawsuits on this issue after he tried to put the ban in place by royal decree in February, forcing federal and state court judges to remind him that mere elected officials must abide by the law.

That's why it was so difficult for an attorney from Nassau County's law department to defend the bill when challenged by legislators at Monday's hearing. This law, only for women's sporting events, would apply equally to private and public school teams, recreational leagues of all ages, charity events, and even competitive professional and amateur adult teams with their own rules on participation. Yet when asked for evidence for why the sweeping law was needed, the county had little to show.

There were no instances in Nassau of a woman or girl harmed by a transgender player and no data that those on teams playing against transgender players suffered more injuries. Nor was there any research about which sports, if any, were more likely to have such injuries occur. The county could only cite four cases, one in Canada, where an injury was reportedly caused by a transgender player. The county could not name one example of a team unfairly winning a sports event because there was a transgender woman on the team. 

And how would this law be enforced? To get approval to use a facility, a representative from each team participating would be required to sign a form that there are no transgender women on the team, even if the team welcomes such individuals. But what if a transgender athlete did play on a women's team at a county facility? The county's only answer was that punishment would be on a case-by-case basis.

Moreover, the county implausibly argues that Title IX, the federal civil rights law that prohibits sex discrimination in educational programs that receive federal funding, will override New York's human rights law which prohibits discrimination based on gender identity. If Draft Kings offered that bet, fortunes could be made overnight.

There can be no real winner in a game that stigmatizes and bullies vulnerable young people making difficult statements about who they are.