The county Legislature’s 12 Republicans approved a bill last week that targets a small, vulnerable minority to correct a problem that they acknowledged does not exist in Nassau.
The bill rubberstamps an earlier proposal by Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman to bar transgender female athletes from taking part in women’s sports on county properties. But not for transgender male athletes playing on men’s teams.
The law, approved in a 12-5 vote along party lines, would apply equally to private and public school teams, recreational leagues of all ages, charity events, and even competitive professional and amateur adult teams with their own rules on participation.
Blakeman has already lost two lawsuits trying to implement the ban by executive order enacted in February.
The New York Civil Liberties Union sued, claiming that the ban violated state and federal discrimination laws and guidance from the state Education Department against a group that faces a suicide rate of almost 40% and unprecedented violence.
A Republican State Supreme Court justice ruled Blakeman had exceeded his authority by issuing the order because there was no “corresponding legislative enactment.”
So, why would Blakeman try again? And why would all 12 Republicans go along?
Blakeman was unable to cite a single instance of a transgender girl or woman playing on a team that uses Nassau County facilities when he announced his executive order in February.
He failed again at a press conference held before the county Legislature’s vote to offer a single instance of a transgender girl or woman playing on a team that uses Nassau County facilities
The Republican legislators could do no better during the debate on the legislation.
They said transgender women and girls hold competitive advantages over women and girls who were born female and could injure and take scholarship opportunities away from them.
But they could not name a single instance in Nassau of a woman or girl harmed by a transgender player. They had no data that those on teams playing against transgender players suffered more injuries.
Nor was there any research about which sports, if any, were more likely to have such injuries occur.
The county could only cite four cases, one in Canada, where an injury was reportedly caused by a transgender player. The county could not name one example of a team unfairly winning a sports event because there was a transgender woman on the team.
Victoria LaGreca, a lawyer with the county attorney’s office, said the law helps to uphold “the principle” of “protecting women from getting seriously injured and harmed.”
In doing so, LaGreca ignored the fact that there are large differences in height, weight and strength between girls and women now playing on sports teams – as there are among boys and men – and sometimes players get hurt.
Shouldn’t LaGreca also express concern about injuries when transgender girls and women are not playing?
By the Republican legislators’ logic, the county would also bar co-ed softball teams, mixed beach volleyball games, mixed doubles in tennis and even mixed doubles for pickleball played at county facilities.
The truth is that there are already better-qualified groups that ensure fairness on Nassau’s fields—sports leagues and the state Education Department.
They already set rules to ensure competitiveness and safety.
That’s why there are varsity and junior varsity teams. And why wrestling is divided into weight classes.
Why not leave it to these leagues and the state Education Department to determine who is allowed to participate and who is not when transgender girls and women are involved?
This begs another question: Why are Blakeman and Nassau County Republicans singling out transgender people, who make up less than 1% of the nation’s population, for special treatment?
The answer is politics.
Republicans across the country have made LGBTQ rights a centerpiece of the culture wars led by former President Donald Trump, the Republican Party’s presumptive pick for president this year.
Trump has promised that if re-elected, his administration will rescind federal policies that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity and will assert that federal civil rights laws don’t cover anti-LGBTQ discrimination.
Republican-controlled state legislatures have already banned drag shows, gender-affirming care for minors and adults, and the teaching of sexual orientation from kindergarten through the third grade, including the passage of Florida’s“Don’t Say Gay” law.”
Supreme Court Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas, both appointed by a Republican president, have even cast doubt on the legality of the ruling that legalized gay marriage.
It is no surprise that Blakeman took up this culture-war fight led by Trump.
He served as the Nassau County Republican Party’s liaison to the 2020 Presidential campaign and has carried the Make America Great Again banner since being elected county executive in 2021.
In the past year, Blakeman has developed a program, in secret, to effectively control his own militia, attacked Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg for indicting Trump and called for the firing of Hofstra University President Susan Poser by falsely claiming she did not respond sufficiently to campus protests about Hamas’ attack on Israel and Israel’s response.
But there was a question of where the 12 GOP legislators stood – as Trump Republicans or traditional party members. Their vote on the transgender bar appears to have answered that question.
They have now joined Blakeman in a campaign to ban female transgender athletes, many of whom we expect are children in their teens who are already dealing with issues of their own sexuality and the taunts of fellow classmates.
The ban approved by the county Legislature requires a representative from each team participating at one of the county’s more than 100 facilities to sign a form stating that no transgender women are on the team, even if the team accepts such individuals.
The enforcement agent would be a Parks Department employee.
One would think that if Blakeman and the Republican legislators could spend this much time on a non-existent problem, Nassau was problem-free.
But that’s not the case.
Nassau County has many serious problems that should be addressed immediately.
This includes the high cost of living, a dysfunctional property assessment system in which many property owners overpay their taxes and ridiculously high fees for all kinds of county services.
But instead of trying to solve these problems, we get Republican county legislators marching in lockstep with Blakeman on a problem that doesn’t exist in Nassau, stigmatizing a vulnerable population in the process.
The bill is likely to come due in the form of lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the new county law.
But perhaps most troubling is that legal challenges may be just what Blakeman and Republican county legislators want: the public’s attention and votes.
Regardless of the price that transgender girls and women pay.