Recently, discrimination against transgender individuals has become increasingly apparent in sports. States such as Florida, Montana, Alabama, Tennessee, and South Dakota have already enacted bans against transgender athletes from competing in school sports and many more states are considering doing the same. Most of these states only prohibit transgender women from competing on women’s teams, but transgender men are also targets of these laws. All in all, these bans are damaging and unnecessary.
A common argument of those who believe that transgender athletes should not be able to compete in the category that matches their gender is that their physiological characteristics will give them an unfair advantage over cisgender athletes; however, this is not accurate. According to Dr. Joshua D. Safer, an endocrinologist, genetic composition and internal and external reproductive organs do not help determine a person’s athletic ability or performance. So, this means athletic capability can vary for both cisgender and transgender athletes. Therefore, transgender athletes will not necessarily have the edge over their cisgender peers and should be allowed to play sports.
As more and more policies are put into place to deter transgender athletes from competing in their appropriate sports categories, many people do not recognize the impact these rulings can have on transgender people, especially the youth. For example, research done by the Trevor Project discovered that the recent arguments about state laws regulating the liberties of transgender youth have negatively affected the mental wellbeing of 85% of transgender and non-binary youth. Not only this, LGBTQ+ youth who encounter unjust policies are more likely to report having low self-confidence and no sense of belonging. They also have higher rates of school absenteeism. Consequently, creating legislation that attacks transgender athletes will cause more harm than good.
For the past 11 years, transgender people have been allowed to participate in sports compatible with their gender identity at colleges and universities in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) with no disturbance to any of the sports teams. This instance shows that transgender athletes can play side-by-side with their cisgender peers. Additionally, including transgender athletes in sports will encourage principles of equality and inclusion and advance transgender rights. Refusing to permit transgender people to take part in sports is discrimination that not only hurts the transgender community, but also society as a whole.