Outrage is growing among New York Democrats in the wake of a new executive order issued by Republican Nassau County executive Bruce Blakeman that would ban trans girls and women from joining female teams that use county facilities.
Governor Kathy Hochul quickly condemned the new order as an overtly political move. “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. Now that the Nassau GOP’s fearmongering on immigration failed in NY-3, they’re resorting to a new divisive culture war attack: bullying trans kids,” she said in a statement.
Attorney general Letitia James echoed the governor’s words, calling Blakeman’s new measure “transphobic and deeply dangerous.” She added that her office was reviewing potential legal options. The New York Civil Liberties Union also indicated that it was mulling its own legal challenge to the executive order. “Nassau County’s cynical executive order is illegal and we will consider all options to stop it,” Bobby Hodgson, the NYCLU’s director of LGBTQ Rights Litigation, said in a statement.
On Thursday, Blakeman announced at a press conference that he had signed the order, which require sports leagues and clubs that use county facilities to “expressly designate” themselves as either a male, female, or coed team, based on the athletes’ sex assigned at birth. Female teams that allow trans girls or women won’t be able to obtain a permit to use the facilities. The order immediately goes into effect for more than 100 facilities in the county, including tennis courts, hockey rinks, and ball fields.
Blakeman, a Republican, said the measure was intended to address what he called a “movement for biological males to bully their way into competing in sports or leagues or teams” designated for girls. He also said that the new rule won’t prevent anyone from participating in sports if they want to, saying that trans athletes can opt to join coed or male leagues if they wish. The order would not restrict trans boys or men from participating on male teams. Blakeman admitted that he did not know the specific number of trans athletes in Nassau County that this would apply to, but said the trans population of the county is somewhere between 0.5 percent and 1 percent of the overall population. He did not give a source for that figure. During his remarks, Blakeman raised an example of a women’s basketball team forced to forfeit a game against an opposing team with a trans player, but admitted that it happened in another state.
In recent years, there’s been a sharp increase in laws passed intended to restrict or outright ban the participation of trans athletes in sports. The Associated Press reports that at least 20 states have passed legislation concerning trans athletes in college-level sports as well as youth sports. In April, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would bar trans athletes from girls’ and women’s teams at federally funded schools. The measure is unlikely to go anywhere due to lack of support from the Democratic Party–led Senate and the threat of a veto from President Joe Biden.
