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A county on Long Island, N.Y., is making more than 100 facilities off limits to athletic organizations that allow transgender girls and women to compete on teams that match their gender identity, staking out a position in the nationwide debate over how and when transgender athletes can participate in women’s sports.
Bruce Blakeman, the Nassau County executive and a Republican, signed an executive order on Thursday requiring any sports league or organization that wants to use a county parks department facility to “expressly designate” its teams as male, female or coed based on members’ assigned sex at birth.
The policy takes effect immediately and does not require legislative approval. The governor, the New York attorney general and the New York chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union said the ban was illegal and suggested legal action could be imminent.
The move was the latest in a series of efforts by officials across the country to bar transgender athletes from competing on teams that match their gender identity, particularly in girls’ and women’s sports. In the past several years, more than 20 states have passed laws restricting transgender athletes from playing school sports on teams that do not match the sex they were assigned at birth, according to ESPN.
And last year, the U.S. House of Representatives, which is controlled by Republicans, approved a bill that would bar transgender women and girls from competing in women’s sports. The bill has no chance of passing the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, or of being signed by President Biden.
According to Mr. Blakeman’s office, the executive action signed on Thursday, which does not restrict transgender boys and men from competing on boys’ and men’s teams, will affect thousands of teams across all levels that compete at Nassau County facilities.
Last year, the Big East Conference, home to 11 college athletics programs, held its swimming championship in the county. A spokesperson for the Big East said the championship would be in Indianapolis this year and that no decision had been made about future events.
Robert Zayas, the executive director of the New York State Public High School Athletic Association, told his colleagues in an email on Thursday that the association “continues to advise its member schools to place students on teams that most appropriately aligns with the student’s gender identity.” Dr. Zayas added that he was working with state officials to figure out how to address the new ban and to determine what effect it would have on student athletes.
Backlash to the order was swift.
“This discriminatory move not only undermines the principles of inclusivity and fairness but also perpetuates harmful stereotypes and exclusion,” said David Kilmnick, the president of the L.G.B.T. Network, a nonprofit group based on Long Island and in Queens.
“New York State law explicitly protects the rights of transgender individuals, ensuring their equal participation in all aspects of life, including sports,” he added. “Attempting to enforce such a ban would be futile and legally untenable.”
Gov. Kathy Hochul, in a statement to The New York Times on Thursday, accused Mr. Blakeman of “bullying trans kids.”
“There is nothing lower than trying to score cheap political points by putting a target on the backs of some of our state’s most vulnerable children,” she said. “We’re proud New York has some of the nation’s strongest protections for the L.G.B.T.Q.+ community, and my Administration is committed to enforcing these laws.”
Letitia James, the New York attorney general, called the order “transphobic” and “deeply dangerous.” Bobby Hodgson, the director of L.G.B.T.Q. Rights Litigation at the New York chapter of the A.C.L.U., said in a statement that the organization would “consider all options to stop it.”
Jami Taylor, a political science professor at the University of Toledo and an expert on L.G.B.T. politics, said in an interview that in signing the order, Mr. Blakeman had ignored both state law and a precedent set by the state Supreme Court.
According to New York human rights law, gender identity and expression is a protected class in “all areas of jurisdiction, including employment, places of public accommodation, public and private housing, educational institutions and credit.” Ms. Taylor said county sports facilities would be considered places of public accommodation.
“What this is, is an attempt broadly by Republicans nationally to focus on the transgender rights issue in an election season,” Ms. Taylor said. “It’s really just a culture war issue that they feel is advantageous.”
The New York Supreme Court ruled in Richards v. United States Tennis Association in 1977 that Renée Richards, one of the first openly transgender professional athletes, could compete in the women’s draw at the U.S. Open, rejecting the tennis association’s requirement for Ms. Richards to pass a sex chromatin test.
“As early as 1977, it was recognized by a New York court that sex discrimination claims under the Human Rights Law may be brought by individuals alleging discrimination because of their gender identity,” the New York state guidance on gender identity protections reads.
Assemblywoman Gina Sillitti, a Democrat representing parts of Nassau County, said that Mr. Blakeman had signed the order to score political points.
“He is issuing an unnecessary executive order to grab headlines that I fear could lead to a culture of hate towards transgender children,” Ms. Sillitti said. “Words matter. Far too often, hateful rhetoric leads to hateful action.”
The executive order was announced at a time of increasing threats and harassment against transgender and nonbinary people, especially children, with bans on athletic activities and bathroom usage continuing to gain traction.
Nex Benedict, a 16-year-old who used they/them pronouns, died this week in a small Oklahoma town outside Tulsa after a confrontation in their high school’s girls bathroom.
Earlier this month, in Utah, a school district had to enlist police protection for a player on a high school girls’ basketball team whom a member of the state school board had suggested was transgender.
Mr. Blakeman, a longtime fixture in Long Island politics, won the county executive’s office in 2021 with a campaign heavily opposed to mask mandates, requirements that had angered some suburban parents and businesses, as well as a focus on crime and bail reform.
His win, part of a wave of G.O.P. victories in Nassau County that fall, catapulted Mr. Blakeman to hero status in state Republican circles, with defiant appearances on Fox News only burnishing that reputation.
But Nassau County, with a population of about 1.4 million people, is far from a monolithic G.O.P. stronghold, with more registered Democrats than registered Republicans and nearly 300,000 nonaffiliated voters.
That moderate disposition was proved last week with a win by Tom Suozzi, a Democrat, in a special election in the Third Congressional District, the majority of which is in Nassau County.
Mr. Blakeman was joined at a news conference on Thursday by Kim Russell, a former women’s lacrosse coach at Oberlin College in Ohio who was removed from her position after publicly criticizing the inclusion of transgender women in women’s sports.
The speakers stood at a lectern flanked by school-age girls holding signs that read “Protect Women’s Sports.”
“I’m here, first and foremost, to support all of these young girls here,” said Ms. Russell, who does not live in Nassau County. “Without having the ability to have single-sex competition, these young girls could lose opportunities.”
When Mr. Blakeman was asked at the news conference how many transgender athletes competed in Nassau County, he said he did not know. He said that fewer than 1 percent of the county’s residents identified as transgender, without citing a source, and that he was not sure how many, if any, competed at county facilities.
Instead, he referred to transgender girls who competed on women’s teams outside New York in his remarks, saying that he wanted to “get ahead of the curve here in Nassau County.”
As Mr. Blakeman signed the order, a small group of protesters gathered outside the county executive and legislative building where the news conference was taking place, chanting, “Trans kids are our kids.”
Juli Grey-Owens, the executive director of Gender Equality New York, a group that took part in the protest, said that in Nassau and Suffolk Counties, which have a combined population of around 2.9 million, there were about 17,000 transgender people.
The bigger question, Ms. Grey-Owens said, was how many transgender athletes were even involved in local women’s and girls’ sports.
“Every time that question is asked, they come back with no answer,” she said. “Because they have a solution looking for a problem.”
Jesse McKinley contributed reporting.
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