Former Olympic gold medal champion Caitlyn Jenner has come out in support of a New York county’s ban on girls’ and women’s sports teams that include transgender athletes from using the county’s public facilities, saying that transgender athletes should not be able to compete in women’s sports.
“Trans women are competing against women, taking valuable opportunities for the long protected class under Title IX and causing physical harm,” Jenner said Monday at a news conference in Mineola, New York, with Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, who signed the executive order on Feb. 22.
Jenner, 74, who won the men’s decathlon at the 1976 Olympics, came out as a transgender woman in 2015 and has been a vocal critic of trans women competing in women’s sports since 2021. Since 2020, half of states have passed laws or regulations that ban trans student athletes from competing on women’s school sports teams, according to the Movement Advancement Project, an LGBTQ think tank.
In a post on X Saturday, Jenner said she felt compelled to speak about the issue as a trans woman to show that “it’s biology, it is not about exclusion or not being tolerant.”
In an interview with NBC News, David Kilmnick, president of the New York LGBT Network, an LGBTQ nonprofit on Long Island and in Queens, called Jenner’s support of the order a “baffling contradiction to her own identity.” He said he fears that a high-profile athlete throwing their support behind Blakeman’s ban may contribute to bullying of trans youths.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state’s attorney general, Letitia James, both Democrats, have spoken out against the ban, and accused Blakeman, a Republican, of bullying transgender youths.
James challenged the order in court March 1 with a “cease and desist letter,” demanding that Blakeman rescind the order, arguing that it violates the state’s anti-discrimination laws. In it, she called the order “transphobic” and said it subjects women’s and girls’ sports teams to “invasive questioning.”
Blakeman’s legal team filed its own lawsuit on March 5 alleging that James’ “cease and desist” letter violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
“Not only was the executive order legal, but we had an obligation to defend it,” Blakeman said Monday.
Blakeman has defended the ban — which covers more than 100 county-owned facilities — as necessary to protect cisgender girls and women from getting hurt while playing sports. The measure does not apply to men’s sports teams.
The New York Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against Nassau County last week, alleging Blakeman’s executive order discriminates on the basis of gender identity.
The NYCLU is representing a Nassau County women’s roller derby league that welcomes trans women and would be barred from using the county’s facilities by Blakeman’s executive order.
“Trans people who play sports need support and affirmation, not to be a political target,” NYCLU attorney Gabriella Larios said in a statement. “Nassau County’s cynical attempt to shut them out of public spaces is a blatant violation of our state’s civil and human rights laws.”
Blakeman said Monday that the same legal team defending against James’ “cease and desist” letter will be fighting the NYCLU’s lawsuit.
Kilmnick of the New York LGBT Network said athletic governing bodies should be free to determine their own standards on the question of how and whether trans women should compete against cisgender women, not the government.
“It’s very dangerous when the government starts to ban groups of people and tells them what they can and cannot do,” Kilmnick said. “We’ve already gone down that road in our history, and it’s dangerous to repeat that.”
