New York county passes law to restrict trans girls and women from sports
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[June 25, 2024]
By Jonathan Allen
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The legislature of New York's Nassau County passed
a law on Monday to ban women's and girl's sports teams from using sports
facilities in the county on Long Island unless they exclude transgender
girls and women from playing.
The law was virtually identical to a thwarted order issued by Nassau
County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican, in February, which was
immediately challenged by New York's attorney general and a local
women's roller-derby team for violating a state ban on discrimination
against people based on their sex or gender identity.
Blakeman's order, which he said was needed to allow cisgender girls and
women the fairest chance to win sporting events, was thrown out by a New
York court, which ruled last month that only the county legislature had
the power to make such a change.
Under the new law, which Blakeman is expected to sign, if an organizer
of girls' or women's sports wishes to book a county-run park or
athletics facility, they must ask each member of the teams involved what
sex was marked on their original birth certificate, and expel any
teammates who were not designated female.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/25/images/ads/current/ldn_lda_BUSDIRCOVER_2024.png)
The restrictions do not apply to boys' and men's teams, nor to mixed
teams not segregated by sex in Nassau County, a largely suburban chunk
of Long Island east of New York City.
Victoria Lagreca, a lawyer in the Nassau County attorney's office,
defended the law by pointing to four episodes in recent years in which
cisgender women or girls were injured while playing sports alongside
transgender women or girls. Two of the episodes were in Massachusetts,
one in North Carolina, and the fourth occurred in Canada.
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![](../images/062524PIX/news_s45.jpg)
Members of New York's Long Island Roller Rebels take a break during
practice at the United Skates of America Roller Skating facility in
Massapequa, New York, U.S., March 19, 2024. REUTERS/Shannon
Stapleton/File Photo
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2024/Jun/25/images/ads/current/guzzardos_lda_GENERIC_040524.png)
In response to lawmakers' questions, she said she was not aware of
any such injuries in New York State, nor of how many instances there
were of cisgender girls and women causing injuries in sports.
Lagreca was unable to say how breaches of the law would be handled,
nor how the county might investigate allegations of violations from
members of the public, other than to say such complaints would be
handled on a "case by case basis."
The Republican-controlled Nassau County Legislature passed the law
in a 12-5 vote after a hearing in which more than a dozen members of
the public spoke to oppose the ban.
New York Attorney General Letitia James has called the restrictions
both illegal and transphobic. Civil rights groups have also
condemned the effort as illegal discrimination and a needless
invasion of people's privacy.
In 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that discrimination on the
basis of sexuality or gender identity amounts to illegal sex
discrimination under the Civil Rights Act.
The New York Civil Liberties Union has said it will likely resume
its litigation against the Nassau restrictions on behalf of the Long
Island Roller Rebels, a women's roller derby team belonging to a
league that welcomes "all transgender women, intersex women, and
gender expansive participants."
(Reporting by Jonathan Allen in New York; Editing by David Gregorio)
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