Across the US, roughly 35 bills have been introduced by state legislators that would limit or prohibit transgender women from competing in women’s athletics. Just a few days ago, the first anti-trans sports bill was signed into law by Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves. In my home state of New Mexico, a similar bill was introduced during the 2021 legislative session but luckily was tabled in committee.  HB304, sponsored by New Mexico Republicans Zachary Cook (R- Ruidoso), Rod Montoya (R-Velarde), James Townsend (R-Artesia), Rachel Black (R-Alamogordo), and Stefani Lord (R-Sandia Park), would have prohibited transgender athletes from participating in sports teams depending on their gender identification. Section 2 of the bill ludicrously stated that “there are only two biological sexes: male and female,” and that “a person’s sex is determined at fertilization and revealed in utero or at birth.” 

This bill is a slap in the face for transgender athletes and the LGBTQ community in the Land of Enchantment and is a symptom of the wave of transphobic bills circulating legislative halls all over the US. However, this isn’t the first time New Mexico has sought to ban trans athletes. In 2013, the New Mexico Activities Association changed a policy on who could compete in sports. According to LGBTQ Nation, the 2013 revision stated that students had to compete as the gender on their original or revised birth certificate. The epidemic of anti-trans athlete bills has taken several states by storm, most likely a reaction to President Biden’s executive order signed on Jan. 20, which indicates that no one should be discriminated against based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

Adrien Lawyer, the co-founder and executive director of the Transgender Resource Center of New Mexico (TGRCNM) says that these bills are a central GOP strategy based on transphobia. “They’re always called things like ‘save women’s sports,’ as if they give a shit about women’s sports,” Lawyer said. “You know you don’t care about women. You don’t care about women’s sports. You don’t care about trans people.” Lawyer also mentioned how high schools do not monitor cisgender (individuals whose gender corresponds with their birth sex) athletes for body differences that may give them a competitive advantage. He also said that the media has created stereotypes about male and female body types, that men are buff and women are petite. Lawyer stated that “there’s really petite trans women, trans girls and women come in every single size.”

Proponents of anti-trans sports bills argue that legislation is needed to maintain fairness in women’s athletics. They claim that transwomen competing in sports have an advantage over cisgender female athletes, but that is a false argument because it has no factual basis. Dr. Eric Vilain, a pediatrician, and geneticist who studies sex differences in athletes say there is no good reason to limit transgender women to compete in sports, especially at the high school level. Vilain added that these antitrans sports bills are not based on scientific evidence, but instead target women who look different or have different biology.

In a recent interview, Dr. Vilain stated that men have, on average, a 10-12% advantage over women in athletic performance, most likely due to differences in levels of testosterone. He went on to discuss whether trans athletes are systematically winning all competitions, and his answer is no. There is no data to suggest that trans athletes winning everything. He also pointed out that higher levels of testosterone are associated with better performance only in a very limited number of track and field athletic events, which are pole vaulting, the hammer throw, and the 400 and 800-meter run. Dr. Vilain says that testosterone does not explain the whole 10% advantage. 

According to Dr. Joshua Safer, “A person’s genetic make-up and internal and external reproductive anatomy are not useful indicators of athletic performance.” For a trans woman athlete who meets NCAA standards, “there is no inherent reason why her physiological characteristics related to athletic performance should be treated differently from the physiological characteristics of a non-transgender woman.” Dr. Joshua Safer (MD, FACP, FACE) is the Executive Director of the Mount Sinai Center for Transgender Medicine and Surgery (CTMS) and Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 

Every sport requires different talents and physical traits to be competitive, and Americans should focus on celebrating this diversity, rather than focusing on the notion of “fairness.” Take a look at basketball players, most of them are really tall. Look at a marathon runner’s physique compared to a football player. We see physical differences in all cisgender athletes.  The recent rash of anti-trans sports bills is not based on science and are blatantly discriminatory and transphobic. This is most disturbing at the high school level, where students and faculty should promote inclusivity and diversity.

Here are the facts: Trans girls are girls, and trans athletes belong on the same teams as cisgender athletes. When a school or organization denies transgender students the chance to participate in athletics, that perpetuates the myth that atransgender student is an outsider, a misfit, a freak. The rash of bills circulating in the US seek to demean and oppress transgender athletes, strip them of their human rights, and relegate them to something other than human. 

The perpetuation of untruths and misconceptions about trans athletes is based upon ignorance, discrimination, exclusivity is discrimination and harms not only trans people but all people. 

A big thanks to Thom Campbell for editing this blog post.