Bans on Trans Athletes are Putting Youth at Risk

A 41-page report released Monday by the Center for American Progress (CAP) found that banning trans athletes from sports deprives an already vulnerable group of the overall health benefits of athletics, which include lower risks of anxiety, depression, and suicide attempts, as well as decreased rates of tobacco and drug use.

The study found that trans youth are at higher risks of suicide, depression, anxiety, and bullying than their cis counterparts. The CAP report found that lack of access to a community willing to affirm their gender identity by using their correct names, and pronouns have been specifically tied to increased suicide rates.

In spite of the risks transgender sports bans pose, 20 states introduced bills to regulate or outright ban transgender athletes from participating in school sports teams that align with their gender identity in 2020 alone. On his first day in office, President Joe Biden issued an executive order calling on the federal government to fully implement the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County to prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

“Children should be able to learn without worrying about whether they will be denied access to the restroom, locker room, or school sports,” the president said.

“Multiple states are rushing to beat the clock and implement transgender sports bans of their own, with 11 state legislatures advancing bills banning transgender sports participation in accordance with gender identity in the first month of 2021 … Against this legislative backdrop, it is not enough to simply avoid outright bans on transgender inclusion in sports or have no policy at all; states must be proactive in implementing inclusive policies,” the CAP report reads.

The report also found that, contrary to what supporters of trans sports bans would argue, inclusion in sports held no negative effects on cis female athletes. Citing bans such as the Save Women’s Sports Act as transmisogyny cloaked in inflammatory language. The report notes that often these bans leave out trans male athletes and seek only to control female participation.

“There is no evidence to support the claim that allowing transgender athletes to participate will reduce or harm participation in girls’ sports. Though anti-transgender groups focus on the very few, cherry-picked examples of competitions where a transgender athlete outperformed a cisgender athlete, evidence suggests that the inclusion of transgender athletes has had no impact on sports participation or women’s athletic achievements,” the report found.

The report also outlines the potential benefits of participating in group sports, which trans athletes are often denied. CAP cites studies published by both The Trevor Project, as well as the Human Rights Campaign, which found that transgender athletes “had significantly higher grades than their LGBTQ peers who did not participate in sports”. These studies also reported that trans athletes saw a 20 percent decrease in depressive symptoms over their queer non-athletic peers.

The report concludes with a list of solutions that can be enacted on school, state, and federal levels, such as transgender-inclusive and age-appropriate sports participation policies, which allow transgender athletes to compete in accordance with their gender identity, as well as the congressional passing of The Safe Schools Improvement Act (SSIA), which would require school districts to adopt and implement anti-bullying and harassment policies that specifically prohibit bullying on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.