The trans athlete ban: Part 3a: NCAA hypocrisy

 [this is cross-posted with Title IX Blog where I will also post something about the announcement that NIL is not subject to Title IX]

The NCAA's new policy banning transwomen from competing in women's sports arrived (seemingly) minutes after the administration issued its executive order banning transwomen and girls from participating in school-sponsored sports teams. 

The NCAA did include verbiage though which is worth looking at. 

This is the synopsis at the top of the press release: Men's category open to all eligible student-athletes, women's category restricted to student-athletes assigned female at birth, schools directed to foster welcoming environments on all campuses.

But it is not accurate. 

The women's category--for competition purposes--is open to people students assigned female at birth who are not taking testosterone. What we see here is a different standard. Testosterone levels matter only for some people. Taking it knocks you out of the women's category but lowering natural testosterone is not enough to qualify someone for participation. So does testosterone matter or not, NCAA?? It is admitting there is no coherent logic or philosophy for participation--and certainly no science. 

Also of note is this statement: The policy permits student-athletes assigned male at birth to practice with women's teams and receive benefits such as medical care while practicing. 

This statement is not for the benefit of transwomen--this just means that basketball teams can keep using men as practice players. It is weird how some people who have gone through "male puberty" are allowed to compete with women without an outcry about them being hurt or dire warnings about how dangerous it is. 

Finally, someone assigned female at birth who is taking testosterone may practice. 

So is testosterone only dangerous in a competition setting? Does it get turned off during practice? 

The Hope Post

Things are bleak and despair is high. I hope folks are doing what they can to fight the fights they think are worth fighting and finding ways to care for themselves and others. I have compiled below videos, websites, fact sheets that I have found helpful in 1) learning more about what is going on from experts and folks on the ground and 2) getting some comfort from the work that is being done and 3) figuring how where to put my efforts and how. 

• This video from GLAD Law about what an executive order and is not. Following them on Instagram may be helpful as they are in the midst of many legal battles. 
• GLAD Law (not be confused with GLAAD which is also doing great work--see below) is fighting the trans military ban and GLAD lawyer Jennifer Levi reported that during the hearing in which GLAD asked for emergency relief from the military ban the judge asked pointed questions of the government including the rationality of a policy that says simply being transgender--while meeting all the other standards for military service--is a violation of the values pf honors, truthfulness, discipline, selflessness, and humility
• The work being done by the National Women's Law Center. This fact sheet about current rights for students under Title IX and a side-by-side comparison of the 2020 rules and the now overruled 2024 rules. 
• I have been following Chase Strangio on Instagram and he is posting a lot of information and encouraging folks to keep fighting--including at a rally for trans youth. 
• Seeing and practicing ways to re-frame the discourse. 
• This piece from Strangio is about the "trans debate."
• I have also been reading Judith Butler's book Who's Afraid of Gender? about the "radical gender ideology" rhetoric and feel better prepared for so many debates.
• Being very overt about what DEI is. Maybe start saying *all the words* aloud* every time. Pointing out that the button for the automatic door opening is DEI; so are subtitles; extra time on exams; service dogs in public spaces; ASL interpreters; financial aid and need-based grants and scholarships...

One of the first really good books I ever read about sports was by Madeline Blais about a girls' basketball team in Amherst, Massachusetts called In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle. he phrase hope is a muscle has been used by others subsequently which makes sense because we all need to figure out how to strengthen that muscle--especially now. 

The trans athlete ban, Part II: Capitulation

 The same day as the president signed the executive order banning transwomen in school-sponsored sports (which WILL have more widespread effects--i.e., recreational sports for youth and adults), the NCAA issued its own change on transwomen in collegiate sports which, for the purpose of "consistency" will also prohibit transwomen from competing in women's NCAA sports. 

[I wrote about the effects the EO will have on Title IX compliance which is something that NCAA purports to care about, at Title IX Blog.]

I would have been surprised (in a good way), if they had not. They give in to outside pressure regularly (with positive and negatives effects). But this policy is another example of their failure to protect athletes. [Lack of penalties for schools that shield predatory coaches and doctors as well as athletes who commit sexual assault; their exploitation of Black men who help them make their billions every March; their laughable adherence to an ahistorical definition of amateur.]

One might ask how the NCAA is even still in existence. The NCAA fears its own demise and this ban moves their own doomsday clock away from the brink because it appeals to conservative fans, very loud white women shouting about protecting women's sports, and--of course--politicians. When President Charlie Baker went to the Senate Judiciary Committee in December, ostensibly to talk about legalized gambling, he would not take a stand on trans participation in NCAA sports saying that all the different federal rulings have created confusion and that basically the NCAA was forced to allow a trans volleyball players compete for San Jose State. (Oddly the TERFs at ICONS hated his testimony because apparently they could not see that he was basically asking the federal government to give him the ban so his life would be easier. They accused him of gaslighting the committee which makes them the winner of the Pot Calling Kettle Black Award. Congratulations.)

As for greater consistency...that is unlikely to occur.  For example, if a transwoman chooses to participate in practices and team activities even knowing she will not be able to participate in competitions, will she be allowed to access to the women's locker room? Some may say, "no, of course not" because the elimination of Biden's Title IX rules does not protect trans students. But some states have laws that ban discrimination based on gender identity. The Title IX changes and the executive order are not laws--they are executive actions, not approved by Congress, not voted on by the people. In short, more confusion is forthcoming. Title IX still protects students based on gender identity discrimination as established by prior court rulings. Additionally, all these bans are being challenged in courts and there is a possibility that the EO will be temporarily halted. Then what will the NCAA do? 

You can tell NCAA leaders what you think of the ban via email:

• NCAA President, Charlie Baker - cbaker@ncaa.org
• NCAA Managing Director of Inclusion, Amy Wilson - awilson@ncaa.org
• NCAA Chair, Board of Governors, Linda Livingstone (President, Baylor University) - Office_of_President@baylor.edu

 

The trans athlete ban: Part I

One post on the administration's executive order banning transwomen and girls from women's sports does not seem sufficient. I have so many things to say. I will do a separate post on the NCAA on the path it chose in issuing its own ban; and then probably another one on the all the contradictions contained in the ban; and then another about this bullshit discourse on the protection of women (the photo of the bill signing with a group of young white girls surrounding a sexual predator is gag-worthy); and the mess that is trying to categorize things as sex or gender. 

Here though I muddle through some initial (though not new) thoughts. 

I am on sabbatical this semester trying to complete a project on the influences of feminist ideologies of the 1970s (US context) on women's sports. And being (re)immersed in this literature has been somewhat surreal given the current discourse. Gender as a concept was not in circulation in the 70s but arguments over the role of culture, biology, political structures divided and re-divided and spawned different groups and activism within the movement that began in the late 1960s as women's liberation. Here we are, still focused on women's bodies and their boundaries and what makes a woman. (And here I thought Simone de Beauvoir had answered that question ages ago 😉.) 

Ideology is always a great place to start though and so I start with the strongest of recommendations for anyone who wants to more fully understand the weaponization of trans people via a "gender ideology" discourse and who wants to be prepared to fight against this weaponization. 

Read Judith Butler's Who's Afraid of Gender?. And take notes. It is smart smart smart. They lay out how and where and who began peddling gender ideology. And if you are afraid of Judith Butler--don't be! It is a pretty accessible book--on purpose I surmise. Also--you can skip the things you don't understand. There is a lot to take from it--some of which I will  share here (and certainly use in the future).

First, I dislike have to enter into debates about biological fairness when we are talking about trans participation in sport. I have talked about this elsewhere: sports are not fair on many levels (biological, economic, political). And none of these things are regulated or paid much attention. 

But this emphasis on one aspect of biology --the thing that we call sex--compels me to address it. One, it is no longer clear which specific aspect of sex is being referred to. Certainly we are not talking about genitalia even though that those are--the majority of the time--what determines sex assigned at birth. And sex assigned at birth is the term being used to categorize children in this new ban. 

Hormones, specifically testosterone, had been used as a marker of sex categorization despite 1) its inaccuracies in determining "sex" and 2) no strict relation to athletic performance. 

The complexity of biological processes has been lost, discarded, ignored despite the fact that all the proponents of these bans hang their hats on biological fairness and then change their minds about what part of biology counts. Duke law professor Doriane Coleman was interviewed for a docuseries episode called Defending Champions (by Vice Investigates and available on Hulu) in which she agreed with testosterone regulations to determine sex for the purpose of sport. But she, professor of a Sex Law course, has changed her mind (along with the other Save Women's Sports folks) and say male puberty is now the standard. (Note that the executive order is simply sex assigned at birth regardless of puberty. Also important reminder: intersex athletes have been left in a dangerous place by the ongoing misbelief that sex is binary and best determined at first glance.)  

Let's see what Butler has to say about puberty, based on actual science.

"If we claim that a person is born with a specific hormonal constitution, or we identify what happened in infancy or in puberty, and conclude that what happens later in life--in sports, example--is determined by those prior levels, we fail to account for all the interactions that activated and made sense of those hormones in specific social relationships."

Just like genes--hormones are not destiny. And hormone levels are so variable even among elite athletes meaning that "those who claim that trans women have an advantage on the playing field because of their hormonal constitutions do not take into account the complexity of hormonal interaction with the environment or the range of endogenous testosterone levels. Undergoing male puberty does not suffice to make anyone into a great athlete." 

And in reality, we're not talking--for the most part--about "great" athletes. We are talking about children and young adults who want to participate in school-sponsored sports. [Also enough with the talk about scholarships being stolen when 1) there are sooooo few scholarship dollars and 2) men's sports still (illegally) receive the majority of those scholarship monies.]

I wrote all this but no one who is supportive of these bans cares about any of it. This is another reason why I dislike being pulled into a biology debate. So few people are participating in good faith.  As Butler writes "what drives the exclusion of trans athletes from sport seems driven by other sorts of passions, ones unsupported by the science at hand." 

But in case anyone is trying to talk about this in classrooms, with friends, family, etc. I hope this offers something--if nothing else a great book recommendation. Science-y folks with a platform--please help dispel the many myths about "biological sex" so we can all shift this discourse.