GHSA Trans Athletes Ban
Content Warning: transphobia, mental health issues
Yesterday, the Georgia High School Association - which governs athletics and activities for nearly 500 high schools across the state of Georgia - voted to ban transgender athletes from competing as their identified gender. This decision, empowered by recent legislative changes, is completely unsupported by science and actively harmful to trans youth. This already vulnerable population has yet again been targeted for discrimination and segregation.
While the GHSA claims this is a matter of “competitive balance,” the science behind transitioning does not support this in any way. Hormone therapy eliminates any biological advantage trans women might have had, just as it eliminates any disadvantage trans men might have had. These policies refuse to acknowledge the scientific reality that trans women competing against cisgender women have no inherent advantage; further, conversation surrounding these policies completely ignores the existence of trans men. While hormone therapy puts them on equal footing with cisgender men, these policies force them to compete against cisgender women - which, if the decision makers actually cared about “competitive balance,” they would oppose.
Make no mistake, this decision is nothing more than discrimination against trans students, in line with the sort of discrimination our community fought against all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States in cases such as Obergefell v. Hodges and Bostock v. Clayton County. However, since the GHSA is a voluntary membership organization, meaning schools don’t have to join and abide by its policy - they just wouldn’t be able to compete against the other hundreds of high schools in the association - it is unlikely that this policy will be litigated.
This is an active step backward for the GHSA, returning to a policy they held prior to 2016. In that year, they switched to allowing individual member schools to set their own policies. Yet they reverted, despite the fact that the organization’s own executive director couldn’t identify any specific athletes that would be impacted: per the AJC, “he was aware only anecdotally of a couple transgender athletes participating in boys cross-country.”
This policy - a solution without any actual problem, and an act of discrimination against a vulnerable population - sends a strong message to trans youth, in particular to trans athletes. It tells them they are unwelcome and unwanted. Policies like this are a major factor in the rates of depression, isolation, and suicidal ideation and attempts among trans youth, rates vastly higher than their peers. These decisions are not balancing athletics -
We condemn and oppose this decision and any like it that further jeopardizes any vulnerable population - but especially our family within the LGBTQ+ community. We call on the GHSA to reverse its decision, and for member schools to protest up to and including the point of withdrawing from the organization to enroll in a different, more accepting organization that acknowledges the scientific reality that trans girls are girls and trans boys are boys.
