Libby Gonzales first participated in activism at age six, around the time she started identifying as a girl. In her home state of Texas, the legislature was pushing a bill to require that students use bathrooms based on their assigned sex at birth. Libby’s reason for getting involved was simple: “I wanted to stop all the harm that was being done.”
So when the Texas Legislature took up bills this session that threatened transgender athletes’ ability to compete, it was deja vu. “You have to be kidding me,” she thought. “Why are they doing it all over again?” Libby, now 11, hasn’t donned her swim cap competitively for a few years. While legislation was not threatening her immediate ability to participate, it was attacking her right to exist.
Just as they had years before, Libby and her mom drove to Austin to testify against the bill. They waited well past midnight to take the stand but were told to go home. “It felt so disappointing because I was practicing the entire day over and over,” Libby remembered.
They returned the next day, welcomed by a hostile crowd. The protesters disrupted the press conference where Libby and other transgender youth were set to speak. “These people came up and started yelling hateful things at us and all the kids went inside to hide,” Libby said. “They took videos of us and we had to go hide in our Representative Crockett’s office.” Libby was ultimately able to testify and felt confident she made an impact. Despite her efforts, Governor Abbott signed the bill into law last month.
2021 was a banner year for legislation affecting transgender youth. The ACLU documented over 110 of these bills in 2021 alone, with the majority proposing an athletics rule similar to Texas’. And already in 2022, nearly 70 such bills have been introduced.
Those in favor have been vocal — they believe transgender girls have a competitive advantage over their cisgender counterparts. Governor Asa Hutchinson of Arkansas, when signing the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act into law this spring, said he was doing so to “help promote and maintain fairness in women’s sporting events.” Yet there are few examples of transgender girls dominating competitive sports. Like with all athletes, there is natural variation in ability. They also point to the NCAA and the Olympics, where transgender individuals are free to compete against members of their gender identity.
Often lost in the clash over school sports is how this legislation impacts transgender students off the field. The mere introduction of this legislation takes a toll. A new report released by The Fenway Institute, a health care center that specializes in serving sexual and gender minorities, detailed how at least six transgender youth attempted suicide following the passage of legislation banning gender-affirming care that transgender youth rely on. Since the athlete bill was introduced in Texas, The Trevor Project — which operates a national suicide prevention hotline for LGBTQ youth — has seen a more than 150% increase in crisis contacts from LGBTQ young people in Texas. “With social media being what it is and the kind of awareness kids have about the world, your existence and right to exist being put to debate in the public square has a direct effect on your mental health,” said Ellen Kahn, Senior Director of Programs and Partnerships at the Human Rights Campaign.
Rachel Gonzales, Libby’s mother, has seen these effects firsthand. “Two nights ago, she had an epic meltdown. It just hit her. In April, after she didn’t get to testify, she didn’t go to sleep until 3 because she was sobbing and sobbing.” Though Libby is otherwise affirmed by her parents and friends, the legislation still impacts how she moves through the world. “It infiltrates kids’ minds in a way that they have to carry around this really deep emotional weight,” said Gonzales. “They know that the people that have the power to do good are instead using the most vulnerable population to amplify their own political platform.”
To help protect LGBTQ students, President Biden issued an executive order on March 8 that ordered a review of the Trump administration’s Title IX rulemaking. The Department of Education followed in June by announcing that Title IX protects students against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity, expanding the original intent of ensuring gender equity in sports. Though the ruling is not legally binding, it can help legitimize current work supporting LGBTQ youth. “Let’s say you are a school counselor who is trying to support trans and nonbinary kids,” Kahn said. Title IX “gives you another lever to pull to say there is an expectation that this is how we are operating. Anything you can document as set policy helps you.”
Yet with no formal protection under federal law, state legislatures go unchecked. When youth are forced to compete on teams inconsistent with their gender identity, they are exposed to alienation and potential abuse, said Ryan Thoreson, a researcher in the LGBT rights program at Human Rights Watch.
Aerin Geary, a high school senior from South Dakota who identifies as nonbinary, sees how this law will increase gender dysphoria, or the distress people feel when their sex assigned at birth does not align with their gender identity. Aerin stopped participating in girl’s wrestling tournaments in middle school, despite having won two national titles in that division. “I was being perceived as a girl all the time,” said Aerin. “For me, I really needed to feel masculine and it would have made me really dysphoric being on the women’s team. I would look and feel out of place.”
Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota recently signed two executive orders that mandate transgender athletes compete on K-12 and college teams based on their sex assigned at birth. Because of Aerin’s school size, there is only one wrestling team that is open to all genders. Like other youth from bigger schools, however, Aerin would have stopped playing sports if forced to compete on a team inconsistent with their gender identity. This reality exacerbates negative health trends for LGBTQ youth. “Sports are such an important socialization opportunity for young people,” says Sean Cahill, director of Health Policy at The Fenway Institute. “There’s a growing body of evidence that LGBTQ youth are more likely to engage in sedentary behavior and not participate in gym class and other outdoor activities. Some of that is related to victimization and bullying. Some of it is related to body image and in some cases gender dysphoria.” This early pattern of behavior can lead to physical health problems later in life.
Avoidance of sports extends to the classroom. According to a study by GLSEN, an organization striving to create affirming learning environments for LGBTQ youth, over half of LGBT students are bullied or harassed during physical education classes because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, the study found that 40% of LGBTQ students skipped physical education classes because they felt unsafe or uncomfortable. This trend, coupled with exclusion from teams that correspond to their gender identity, makes it more difficult for transgender and nonbinary youth to participate in key physical activity and socialization, feeding into a vicious cycle of alienation. “I was doing a lot worse when my team was not accepting,” Aerin said when discussing the initial exclusion they felt on the wrestling team. “People are struggling and then these bills come out and we have to turn around and defend against that.”
Issues of inclusion will only become more prominent as more youth feel comfortable identifying as transgender or nonbinary. A recent Gallup poll found that younger generations are more likely to identify as LGBT. Roughly one in six Gen Z members identifies as LGBT compared to less than 1 in 10 Millennials.
One potential solution is genderless sports, particularly at elementary and middle school levels, said Michelle Hatchell, the Associate Director of Human Rights Campaign’s Welcoming Schools, a professional development program helping educators create more LGBTQ-inclusive classrooms. This change would allow kids to play without feeling constrained by gender.
After all, competition is not what makes school sports valuable. “The reason we put education funding into sports is it is supposed to build physical fitness, teach teamwork and the value of hard work in pursuit of a goal,” Thoreson said. “To withhold those benefits from a group of kids in the name of one hypothetical cisgender kid who might otherwise be a state champion is misguided.”
Aerin has had these hypothetical arguments thrown at them directly, sometimes by teachers who sought to play ‘devil’s advocate.’ “For some people, this is just some intellectual game,” Aerin said. “But for me, this is about my family.”