On March 30, Idaho’s Republican governor Brad Little signed the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” into law, a bill that bans trans and intersex girls from competing in women’s athletics at the youth, high school, and college levels. The legislation, passed the day after International Transgender Day of Visibility, states that “athletic teams or sports designated for females, women, or girls shall not be open to students of the male sex,” and specifies that a “dispute” about an athlete’s gender can only be resolved through a physician’s examination of “the student's reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup, or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels.” Of at least nine other states actively considering similar bans on trans women’s participation in women’s sports, Idaho is the first to pass one into law.
Critics were quick to point out the cruelty of the bill’s timing, passed when all gatherings — let alone athletic events — had been cancelled or postponed to stop the spread of the coronavirus. And as Vox reported, there were no openly trans athletes participating in youth or college-level sports in Idaho when the bill passed, either. Coupled with the fact that Governor Little signed legislation barring Idahoans from changing the gender marker on birth certificates on the same day, many saw Idaho’s “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act” as less about “fairness” and more about brazenly attacking the rights of trans people.
These bills promise to hold dire consequences for trans people in the state and in all parts of the country where similar legislation is being pursued. To learn more about the debate surrounding trans participation in women’s sports and the danger posed by bills that prevent it, we spoke to Dr. Vinny Chulani, Director of the Phoenix Children’s Hospital Adolescent Medicine Program, an esteemed practitioner in the field of LGBTQ+ care and an ardent advocate of the rights of trans and gender-nonconforming youth. Below, Dr. Chulani outlines the grave mental health implications Idaho’s bill will wreak, and the medical and scientific misunderstandings that inform such legislation in the first place.
What was your initial reaction to hearing about that bill, particularly the one that was designed to prohibit trans women from competing in women's sports?
I was especially surprised to see the bill go through the Idaho legislature because at the same time that this was happening, we had a very similar house bill here in Arizona, House Bill 2706, which was entitled “Save Women In Sports Act.” What’s especially draconian about what’s going on in Idaho is that they have an additional piece of legislation that bars people from changing their gender marker on their birth certificate. This will be especially harmful because birth certificates are often a person's primary proof of citizenship. They open doors to a wide range of services. This decision is really unfortunate.
What do you see as the main negative consequences of this kind of legislation?
First, there are the implications of this bill on the social and emotional well being of TGNC youth. We have a tremendous body of literature that talks about the benefits of sports participation on confidence and character building, on competence, on coping; there's so much that sport can offer. And we also know that there's a tremendous disparity in the rates of anxiety and depression and suicide among TGNC youth versus their cisgender peers. If anything, we should work to eliminate these disparities by encouraging and engaging all young people in sports. Where 68% of cisgender students are involved in sports, only around 10 to 15% of our transgender youth are, too. This bill creates an additional layer of stigma and therefore deprives young people of the benefits of being able to participate in sports.
The second thing that I think is really an area of concern for me is how this is a decision that is really not based on science. There are so many characteristics that contribute to excellence in sports. And the same attributes don’t always carry over from one sport to the next. You need different skills for golfing than you need for archery, basketball, soccer, or gymnastics. Plus, there's not really any sound body of evidence that speaks to the advantage that testosterone confers. When you take a look at some of the studies that have been done on transgender females in terms of their athletic ability, it overlaps with the range that you would find in cisgender women. There is no body of evidence to suggest that there is an advantage.
The third thing that's really problematic about the law is its implementation, which promises to force women to prove their womanhood… This puts the burden of proof on the accused. Now some might have to submit to a blood test at [their] expense. What does this mean for people that can't afford karyotyping or don't have access to medical care? The other thing that’s crazy about this is that it’s being applied to kids in K-12. That means the rules for participating in K-12 sports will be more stringent than those governing the Olympics. What kind of craziness is that? We’re talking about two clumps of kids that just want to kick the ball around.
You suggested that this kind of legislation is not based on science, but rather opportunistic readings of existing studies. What do those who support preventing trans women’s participation in women’s sports misunderstand most about sex, bodies, and gender?
That these are fixed processes and that transgender women are really men who are homogeneous in terms of their strength and are uniformly stronger than any woman. Bills like Idaho’s fail to recognize the diversity within the transgender female population. They also fail to understand the biology of puberty and where we are presently in terms of treatment, specifically with puberty blockers. Remember that when you take a look at pre-pubertal bodies, assigned male and assigned female bodies look a lot alike; it's not until puberty that they go their different ways under the influence of sex steroids… Nowadays, if you have a patient in early puberty who was assigned male at birth and has gender distress or gender questions, we can use puberty blockers to suppress male puberty. They would not develop the traits that would theoretically afford them the advantage. Yet this child, under Idaho law, would still be excluded.
These bills are coded in the language of fairness. And yet they are being considered and passed at a time when organized sports are not happening. Given that knowledge, do you believe fairness is what is being protected here, or potentially something else?
This law in Idaho has to be viewed in the context of the march that we are seeing in legislative houses across the country. Let's not be ignorant, right? This is part of a larger anti-transgender agenda. Let's not deceive ourselves that it's anything other than that.
Considering the broader anti-trans agenda, what worries you most as bills like the recently passed ones in Idaho continue moving through state legislatures?
How they harm young people through enforcing already existing stigma. Young trans people may choose to not participate in sports. But even if they might not want to participate in sports, at least that option should be there for them. It’s tough enough.
The opinions expressed in this interview, which has been edited and condensed for clarity, are Dr. Chulani’s own, and do not reflect those of any organization of which he is a part, including the Phoenix Children’s hospital.
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