Posted by:
Beth
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)
Date: February 22, 2024 09:55PM
“N.Y. County Order Targets Transgender Women and Girls in Sports”
“ A new ban in Long Island’s Nassau County prohibits girls’ and women’s teams with transgender athletes from competing at public facilities, the latest effort in a nationwide push to limit participation in women’s sports.
“ A county on Long Island, N.Y., is making more than 100 facilities off limits to athletic organizations that allow transgender girls and women to compete on teams that match their gender identity, staking out a position in the nationwide debate over how and when transgender athletes can participate in women’s sports.
“Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and a Republican, signed an executive order on Thursday requiring any sports league or organization that wants to use a county parks department facility to “expressly designate” its teams as male, female or coed based on members’ assigned sex at birth.
“The policy takes effect immediately and does not require legislative approval. The governor, the 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 officials across the country to bar transgender athletes from competing on teams that match their gender identity, particularly in girls’ and women’s sports. In the past several years, more than 20 states have passed laws restricting transgender athletes from playing school sports on teams that do not match the sex they were assigned at birth, according to ESPN.”
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“ Gov. Kathy Hochul, in a statement to The New York Times on Thursday, accused Mr. Blakeman of “bullying trans kids.”
“There is nothing lower than trying to score cheap political points by putting a target on the backs of some of our state’s most vulnerable children,” she said. “We’re proud New York has some of the nation’s strongest protections for the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community, and my Administration is committed to enforcing these laws.”
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“When Mr. Blakeman was asked at the news conference how many transgender athletes competed in Nassau County, he said he did not know. He said that fewer than 1 percent of the county’s residents identified as transgender, without citing a source, and that he was not sure how many, if any, competed at county facilities.
“Instead, he referred to transgender girls who competed on women’s teams outside New York in his remarks, saying that he wanted to “get ahead of the curve here in Nassau County.”
“As Mr. Blakeman signed the order, a small group of protesters gathered outside the county executive and legislative building where the news conference was taking place, chanting, “Trans kids are our kids.”
“Juli Grey-Owens, the executive director of Gender Equality New York, a group that took part in the protest, said that in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, which have a combined population of around 2.9 million, there were about 17,000 transgender people.
“The bigger question, Ms. Grey-Owens said, was how many transgender athletes were 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 looking for a problem.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/22/nyregion/nassau-county-trans-ban.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Xk0.yuhJ.yNg8YecZTa45&smid=url-share