We Are Better Than This

It’s amazing how America has become focused on issues that are, at best peripheral, when it comes to mattering much in our daily lives. Our politics are filled with these types of issues right now. For example, 7.6% of U.S. adults identify as LGBTQ+, but the amount of time we spend debating about gay rights, when other issues like immigration, health care, infrastructure, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and our democratic future loom over us.

An issue being debated currently in the public education realm is whether transgender youth should be allowed to participate in interscholastic athletics. Whereas 20 states and the District of Columbia have policies that allow transgender athletes to participate in sports in line with their gender identity without requiring medical interventions, another 17 states have policies that prohibit transgender athletes from participating in sports, often due to inaccurate or amended gender markers on birth certificates.

One of those states that has enacted a law prohibiting transgender athletes from participating in interscholastic sports is Florida. Transgender girls are banned from playing on women’s sports teams at public schools in Florida under the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act, signed by Governor Ron DeSantis in 2021.

Recently, The Washington Post published an article titled “Her Trans Daughter Made the Volleyball Team. Then an Armed Officer Showed Up.” Here are excerpts from that story:

“Jessica Norton eased her minivan out of the driveway, and she told herself she’d done what any mother would. Her daughter Elizabeth had wanted to play high school volleyball, and Norton had let her. Norton had written female on the permission slips. She’d run practice drills in the yard, and she’d driven this minivan to matches all across their suburban Florida county.”

…

“Until recently, Norton had worked at the high school Elizabeth attended. But last fall, an armed officer with the Broward County Public Schools Police had told Norton she was under investigation for allowing Elizabeth to play girls sports. District leaders banned Norton from the building. They discussed the investigation on the local news, and soon, everyone in Coconut Creek, Florida seemed to know Elizabeth is transgender…”

“In the nine months since, school officials had talked about Elizabeth as if she were dangerous, but Norton knew they couldn’t possibly be picturing the 16-year-old who stood at the edge of the driveway in Taylor Swift Crocs. This girl loved Squishmallows and Disney World. She had long red hair, and she was so skinny, the principal described her to investigators as ‘frail.’”

“Elizabeth didn’t have an advantage, Norton thought. She was a normal teenage girl, and yet her very existence had thrust them into one of the nation’s most contentious debates.”

“Over the last few years, half the country, including Florida, had banned trans girls from playing on girls teams. Proponents of the laws argued that they were fighting for fairness, and the debate had spilled into the stands with an anger that worries Norton. Critics called trans competitors ‘cheats.’ Crowds booed teenage athletes. And some spectators had begun eyeing cisgender competitors for signs of masculinity.”

“For all that fury, though, no one had been punished yet under one of the bans. Soon, Norton feared, she might become the first. The Broward County School Board planned to take up her case that afternoon, and the agenda included only one proposed outcome: termination.”

“Norton drove toward her fate and felt nauseous. This life had not been the one she envisioned, but she’d done all she could to ensure it was a good one for her daughter. And she’d succeeded. Before the investigation, Elizabeth had been happy. She’d been a homecoming princess and class president two years in a row. She had friends, near-perfect grades and blue eyes that lit up when she talked about the future.”

“Now, Elizabeth stayed home and read hateful comments on the internet. She didn’t play sports. She hadn’t been back to Monarch High School.”

“Norton wanted the light in her daughter’s eyes back. She wanted Elizabeth to have prom and graduation, senior pictures, all the little hallmarks of a teenage life. But first, Norton told herself, she had to fight for her job. She had to return to the school district that shunned her, then somehow she had to convince Elizabeth it was safe for her to go back, too.”

…

“For much of [Elizabeth’s] life, all the big sports associations allowed trans athletes to compete, and most states did, too. Some required athletes to show proof they were taking hormones or blockers, but a dozen states, including Florida, had no restrictions at all. As long as a student could show their gender identity was consistent, they could play.”

“Trans people represent less that 1 percent of the country’s population, and for decades, state lawmakers rarely mentioned them. But as gay people won protections and the right to marry, LGTBQ+ rights groups and right-wing leaders began looking for new issues to galvanize supporters. Both turned their attention to trans rights.”

“The community was slowly becoming more visible. Trans people ran for office and appeared on TV, and 17 million people watched as Caitlyn Jenner came out on ‘20/20.’ Trans athletes almost never dominated. But between 2017 and 2019, two trans girls beat cisgender competitors at state track meets in Connecticut, and leading conservative Christian groups warned that other girls would lose athletic opportunities if trans girls continued to compete.”

“Over the next few years, Florida and two dozen other states passed nearly identical bans on trans girls in sports. Many Republican lawmakers spoke about trans athletes as if they were all the same – tall and muscular, physically dominant, grown men cross-dressing for the sake of a secondary school athletic win. The bill sponsors didn’t mention trans girls who never went through puberty. They hardly ever talked about children like Elizabeth who tried and failed to make a seventh grade team. By 2023, multiple polls, including one by The Post and KFF, found that two-thirds of Americans agreed that trans girls should not be allowed to play girls sports.”

“Trans athletes remain very rare. A 2021 Associated Press analysis of 20 proposed state bans found that legislators in most couldn’t point to a single trans athlete in their own region. And in Florida, state records show that just two trans girls have played girls sports over the last decade – a bowler who graduated in 2019 and Elizabeth.”

…

This past August, instead of terminating Norton, the Broward County School District reassigned her to do clerical work at a non-school site. Elizabeth is currently home-schooling. The family is considering a move away from Coconut Creek.

To be fair, The Washington Times reported this past June that five biological males who identify as female won girls’ state scholastic titles at outdoor-season track-and-field spring meets in Connecticut, New Hampshire, Maine, Oregon, and Washington. So, even though their numbers are still quite low, there might be those who will say biological female athletes are being cheated in these states because transgender girls are beating them.

But let’s be real here.

Are we ready to protect those second-place finishers at the state track meet over transgenders like Elizabeth and others like her?

Are we ready to see adolescent mental health concerns continue to soar because we want to protect someone’s right to win a gold medal?

Finally, are we ready to focus on an issue that involves 1% of our population, while other more important issues cry out for our attention?

I guess two out of three of us would say “yes.”

Friday News Roundup tomorrow. Til then. SVB