Story at a glance
- Schuyler Bailar, the NCAA’s first openly transgender Division I swimmer, on Tuesday said lawmakers backing legislation that targets transgender athletes were “fear mongering” and purposefully spreading misinformation about transgender people.
- Bailar in a Human Rights Campaign video questioned why biological differences between women are often scrutinized, while biological diversity in men is celebrated.
- Transgender athlete bans are under consideration in close to 20 states, and 15 states have already put laws in place to prevent transgender students from playing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
Schuyler Bailar, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s (NCAA) first openly transgender Division I athlete, on Tuesday released a video challenging popular myths about transgender women in sports as lawmakers across the country consider barring transgender students from athletics in K-12 and, in some cases, through college.
“People in power are fear mongering,” the former Harvard swimmer said in a video released Tuesday by the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBTQ+ advocacy group. “They’re using propaganda and they’re trying to sway people like you.”
Bailar accuses state lawmakers backing legislation that targets transgender athletes of pretending to care about issues like equality, feminism and “protecting women” in athletics.
“Lots of people who claim to care about fairness and women’s sports never watch the WNBA, don’t care about the pay gap between women athletes and men athletes and are doing nothing to stop the sexual assault of women athletes around the world,” Bailar says.
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State legislators across the country have introduced — and in some cases passed — the “Fairness in Women’s Sports Act,” which seeks to bar mostly transgender women and girls from competing on sports teams consistent with their gender identity.
According to the group Freedom for All Americans, which tracks discriminatory anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, close to 20 states are currently considering implementing transgender athlete bans. Fifteen states have already made them law.
“The reality is, if you want to protect women, you have to protect all women, transgender women included,” Bailar says in the video. “I want you to remember above everything that we are real people, that trans athletes are real people, that trans kids are real kids with human emotions just like you. The amount of vitriol and hatred and unkindness I’ve seen at trans athletes is unbelievable.”
Those who support bills like the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act often reference the success of Lia Thomas, a transgender swimmer at the University of Pennsylvania who last month became the first transgender woman to win a national championship in Division I athletics.
Several collegiate swimmers who competed against Thomas have spoken out about the athletic association’s alleged failure to protect its athletes, claiming Thomas and other transgender female athletes have ripped competitive opportunities away from them.
Earlier this month, Riley Gaines, a University of Kentucky swimmer who recently tied for fifth place with Thomas for another NCAA title, told reporters that she supported the Kentucky legislature’s override of Gov. Andy Beshear’s (D) veto on the state’s own transgender athlete ban, asserting that “biological males should not be competing against women.”
Critics have argued that Thomas and other transgender female athletes have created an unlevel playing field because of things like a larger heart and lungs developed as a result of male puberty.
Bailar on Tuesday questioned why biological differences between women are often scrutinized, while biological diversity in men is celebrated. Some have criticized Thomas for her stature, claiming she towers over her competitors. But Missy Franklin, a five-time Olympic gold medalist and a cisgender woman, stands taller than Thomas, at 6 foot 2 inches.
“At what point is a girl too strong? Or her hands too big? Or her look too masculine?,” Bailar asked in the video. “We are illegally enforcing what a girl’s body can look like and how a girl’s body can perform in order for her to play sports. This legal enforcement of policing girls’ bodies is what will destroy the women’s category, not the inclusion of transgender girls.”
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