SPORTS ILLUSTRATED 62MAINSTREAM ACCEPTANCE
A few years ago, Portland chef Jenny Nguyen and her
friends went to a sports bar for the NCAA women’s basketball cham-
pionship. The game was a blast. Yet their viewing experience left
something to be desired—by request, a bartender changed the channel
on one television to the women’s title game, but Nguyen and her crew
were relegated to the corner of the bar. And of course there was no
sound. Nguyen and her friends were used to that. (Many women’s
sports fans are.) But she allowed herself to dream a little: What if it
didn’t always have to be like this?Upon taking office, President Joe Biden
instructed his government that Title IX
does prohibit gender-based discrimination
against trans people. While that means trans
people cannot be discriminated against in
most educational settings, Western New
England University Law School professor
Erin Buzuvis, who specializes in Title IX
issues, says it remains to be seen how Biden’s
direction will be applied to situations like
sports, which we’ve accepted can be seg-
regated by gender. That differs from, say,
college admissions or French club, where
there’s no separation by gender. Meanwhile,
in three of the states with trans sports
bans—Idaho, Tennessee and West Virginia—
trans athletes have joined with groups
including the ACLU and Lambda Legal to
sue for their right to compete.
Though Title IX isn’t the law in question
in the court cases, once they work their way
through the system we may gain clarity on
what and whom the statute protects.
That could take years, though, and, in
the meantime, the fight over how Title IX
applies to trans athletes will take place
among activists, in the media and on the
political battlefield.
The stakes in this fight for trans peo-
ple, already a vulnerable population, are
high. The debate itself has already proved
harmful. A 2020 peer-reviewed study found
that trans and nonbinary youth who have
experienced discrimination based on their
gender identity are twice as likely to attempt
suicide as their peers. And more than half
of trans and nonbinary youth considered
suicide over the course of the previous year,
according to a ’21 Trevor Project survey.
In the same survey, 94% of LGBTQ youth
reported that recent politics have negatively
affected their mental health.
Along with the revival of the so-called
bathroom bills and restrictions on trans-
affirming health care for youth, the anti-
trans sports laws are “about banning trans
people and limiting our access to our every-
day activities,” duathlete and trans rights
activist Chris Mosier told SI. “It’s about
erasing trans people from public view.”
They are also about who holds the right to
be a woman under Title IX. —Julie Kliegman50 Y E ARS OF TITLE IX