The Transgender Girls’ Rights in Sports: Indicators and Proponents of the State-Sensitive New Jersey Elementary School Athletics Law
The West Virginia Secondary School Activities Commission, which oversees scholastic sports, said in 2021, when the suit was filed, that it had not received any complaints about transgender athletes on girls’ teams.
The American Civil Liberties Union and its West Virginia chapter filed the lawsuit in 2021 on behalf of an 11-year-old transgender girl who hoped to compete in middle school cross-country in Harrison County. The state and county boards of education were named in the lawsuit.
“Decisions are always difficult when they involve conflicting needs and rights between different groups, but we continue to take the view that we must maintain fairness for female athletes above all other considerations,” World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said in a statement.
The legislature’s definition of girl is related to the government’s desire to provide equal athletic opportunities for females.
He said in his decision that he wanted the person to have a chance to live free from judgement and hatred for being who she is. But he did not find sufficient evidence that lawmakers passed the legislation with harmful intent.
Proponents of such measures argue that trans women and girls have the same advantages as their cis gender counterparts in sports, while detractors argue that the legislation adds to discrimination against trans people.
On Transgender Inclusion in Track and Field: a Statement of the Highest Rate of Birth Certificates in West Virginia and a Final Decision by Mid Vermont Christian School
The court wouldn’t have been able to comment on the issue had the legislature not done so. “Nevertheless,” the judge concluded, “I must do so now.”
A 2017 study by the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law used state-level, population-based surveys to estimate that West Virginia had the highest percentage (1.04%) of residents ages 13 to 17 among all states who identified as transgender. That equated to about 1,150 teens.
Mid Vermont Christian School (MVCS) was set to play Long Trail School on February 21, but MVCS forfeited the game due to a transgender player on Long Trail’s roster, according to the head of school at MVCS, Vicky Fogg.
We withdrew from the tournament because we believe that playing against an opponent with abiological male jeopardizes the integrity of the game and the safety of our players.
The factors that go into determining the sex listed on a birth certificate may include anatomy, genetics and hormones, and there is broad natural variation in each of these categories.
A survey by the National Survey on Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Trans Youth Mental Health found that more than half of these young people have seriously considered suicide in the last year.
He explained that World Athletics – the global governing body for track and field – would set up a working group to evaluate the issue of transgender inclusion over the next 12 months.
But the mainstream science does not support that conclusion. A 2017 report in the journal Sports Medicine that reviewed several related studies found “no direct or consistent research” on trans people having an athletic advantage over their cisgender peers, and critics say the bans add to the discrimination trans people face.
In Thursday’s statement, World Athletics said: “It became apparent that there was little support within the sport for the option that was first presented to stakeholders, which required transgender athletes to maintain their testosterone levels below 2.5nmol/L for 24 months to be eligible to compete internationally in the female category.”